Osaka – Part 3

Day 03 –

Today, we’ve barely opened our eyes, Côme is already saying: “Alright! Let’s go fishing in the restaurant?!”. So it seems we have no other choice. We get ready and get on our way. Once there, a waiter tells us that each person has to pay to sit down, even if they’re not eating… “Seriously?!” says Doo a bit disillusioned – “Yes yes” – “And how much is it?” – “5,000”… (35€) “Whaaaaat!?! Each?” – “Yes.” … “Sorry Côme I guess we won’t be eating in that restaurant afterall…”. And that’s when Côme’s world gets shattered into pieces… We try to make him understand that it’s super expensive, that we’ll go fishing soon, but he doesn’t understand and sobs out as we’re leaving. We feel horrible for him so we go back to the restaurant to make sure Doo understood correctly. He writes the number 5000 on his phone and show it to the waiter. The waiter says no and writes 500. “Alright!!! Côme, we can go!”

Julia enters this “place of horror” (says her) reluctantly. Côme is delighted and takes a fishing rod to fish for his lunch. There are several aquariums with different species of fishes. Each species has its own price and a sign reads: “All fish caught is a fish bought”. So we are very careful to keep Côme away from fishes that cost 100€. Côme first tries to fish with a rod but we have no bait and obviously the fishes do not want to bite. It seems that they expect us to fish like we do the duck fishing game for kids in the fairs. Hooking them up. We find it quite barbaric so we advise Côme to take the fishing net instead. And of course, the first fish he catches is a half-dead fish that was floating on the surface for a while… Doo looks to the right, then to the left and discreetly puts it back into the water (there’s no way we are paying for food poisoning with a rotten half-dead fish). The second fish Côme catches is in much better shape (at least before ending up in Côme’s hands). He gives it to the waitress to be grilled and after a 3/4 of an hour wait, Côme will eat his freshly caught and grilled herring. As for Julia and Doo, they will be happy to eat just accross the street, in their favorite sushi restaurant.

We are then heading towards city centre. A very lively district with shopping arcades and shopping centers everywhere. We are looking for a Ghibli store we have seen on Google maps. Ghibli is a Japanese cartoon studio. We went looking for the shop because we had just watched “My neighbor Totoro” the night before (Totoro is a kind of endearing big cat/bear). We wanted to show Côme a Japanese cartoon to further his immersion in Japanese culture. 😁 He loved it!!! We take some time finding the store because it is located in a shopping center underneath the road. I let you imagine Doo with Google maps in front of his eyes as we stand on (above) the GPS point… “Hum… we are there…” – “No no, we’re not…”. We will eventually find it and decide to watch another cartoon from the same studio that night, while eating our favorite yakisobas. Full immersion! 😅

The next few days –

The next few days we will take our time strolling down the centre area again. We’ll have to find another apartment because the flight to our next destination will be delayed for three days. The new apartment will reek of cigarette smell but it will be closer to the center and right next to a Kura restaurant (believe us, it was not a search criteria). Julia and Doo will be delighted to go back for yet another round of sushis but Côme will seriously start to get fed up. We will shop window without buying anything (kinda tough), we’ll taste some rather not so good culinary specialties: tartlets that looked good but weren’t and Julia will even try octopus meatballs (a big yuck!!!). We will be impressed by a Japanese invention: the 27-hour day!!! (A total contrast to our 35 hour week, right?!) We’ll let Doo wander around manga, gaming and figurine shops (he’ll even find a figurine he’s been looking for for ages… yet another surprise guest in the bag…). And of course, we’ll play video games a few last times. Côme will be very proud to win races against his Doo and even against two other Japanese gamers. And he’ll spend hours in a train simulator. An incredible game where you find yourself in a cabin replicating almost identically the real driver’s compartment. He does no longer want to be a paleontologist now but a shinkansen driver. 😁

And then, of course, Julia will try her luck one last time with the “scam”… And you know what??? She will win!!! Like seriously!!! Julia won the scam!!! She won it!!! With the last and only coin we had spared for the game… For once, the hook didn’t let go of the plush and dropped it in the hatch, just like that… None of us believed it!!! And we celebrated this “victory” as if we had won the lottery. Luckily, she had chosen a machine with small plushes because otherwise we don’t know how we could have taken it with us in our bags. Japan is a real challenge to those who wish to travel light… So we have a new traveling companion: Sharky. 😁

It’s time for us to leave Japan. Doo is starting to second guess our next destination. We’re going towards the sun, the tropical forests, the sandy beaches… He would like to stay in this Christmassy atmosphere, the cold, hot chocolates, Mariah Carey’s Christmas songs… “Don’t you guys want to go back to Seoul? It was great there right?” – “No Doo, let’s continue our journey.” – “Alright, alright…”. Once at the airport there are signs everywhere, our gate is right next to a flight to Seoul, there are Korean Air planes everywhere… But we continue on. As we are waiting for our plane we witness one last “Japanese uniqueness”: the marshallers (those people who park the planes) are waving the plane goodbye as it leaves the tarmac. Japan was just incredibly awesome!!!

These last few days in Japan, Côme:
Did not understand: why we went that many times to Kura to eat sushis.
Learnt: that he loved Japanese cartoons.
Loved: to drive trains.

Julia:
Did not understand: why the “horror” restaurant was so crowded.
Learnt: that there’s “peculiar” tastes within Japanese cuisine.
Loved: winning the scam.

Doo:
Did not understand: how Julia managed to win at the scam.
Learnt: that there were boats with huge neon adverts on the river.
Loved: the retro gaming shops.