On Monday night I was treated to dinner by my friend's host mother, who goes by "mama-san". She's a 72-year old feisty lady who has hosted a plethora of international students throughout the years since her husband passed away. She met us at the station, wearing her fashionable boots and toting her Louie Vuitton handbag, and she showed us the right way to get on the train in Osaka--cutting in front of the line, elbowing a few people, and darting up the stairs to get a seat on the double decker express. She took us to Kyoto to a pretty restaurant where she knew the owner, and promptly ordered the three of us "delicious German" beers, (and a ginger ale for herself), plus three baskets of karage and each plates of curry omurice, plus free popcorn. The karage was delicious--the perfect crispiness on real chicken, served with this amazing salty-spice mix that you can sprinkle on (or dowse, which I prefer to do). The curry omurice was good, if you like curry, because even I managed to get through almost all of the massive plate of food. She was delightful, full of energy and laughter (despite her not speaking even a lick of English, and me and my friend terrible Japanese, and the host-son not translating anything), and it was a really good dinner with some great company.
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| Rules at Giraffe |
Friday, after getting thoroughly screwed over by my Japanese oral exam (but managing to turn in and complete my other three papers for my finals in all my other classes, woohoo!), we went out to Giraffe, a club down in Shisaibashi, Osaka. This club is much larger than the one we went to the other weekend, and it's on the waterfront of Shinsaibashi/Dotonbori, so it's actually kind of pretty. It's four stories--the first floor is lockers, the second floor is a dance floor, third floor is a VIP area, and the fourth floor is another dance floor and the nomihoudai bar. Admission before 9:00 is free, and guys drink free before 9, girls drink free all night. The selection here was definitely more limited, however, as they had two main bottles of either some weird gross Japanese liquor or Hennessy mixed with a variety of options--cola, orange juice, ginger ale, whatever. It was much more watered down, and the drinks were more so filling than actually getting you tipsy, but whatever, free is free. They had face painting stuff that would glow under the black lights, pretty good music, lots of cool lighting, smoke machines...pretty legit. The entire fourth floor was chock full of fellow gaijin, but it was more conveniently located to the free bar, so we spent most of our night there, though we did pop in to the second floor and dance with some Japanese people for awhile. It was an overall awesome night, dancing away with some great friends, being stupid, laughing, just being young and stupid. We caught the last train at midnight and made it home with ease, thank God.
Saturday I went to Spa World Osaka, which wasn't too far and even though it usually costs closer to $30, it only cost us $10 somehow. When you get there, it's pretty confusing--you first have to walk up to a machine and try to figure out which button you press even though they all have the same kanji. We could read the prices above, yet the machine didn't have instructions on it, and despite our (obvious) fumbling around, the employees kind of just happily stood at a distance. We decided to just stick our money in, press and button and try our luck, and it did spit out a card that we just walked through with. They give you a wristband and a paper in English of all the instructions, so you kind of just bumble around with that. You have to first take your shoes off, then walk over to the shoe locker, find an open locker, get another key, then they want you to go to some valuables locker that look like safety deposit boxes which we skipped, then you can go up to your separate floors. Every month they switch off the two themed spas between men and women, and this month women get Asia themed while men get Europe.
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| Islam Onsen |
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| Cypress Onsen |
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| Outdoor Japanese Onsen (the best one!) |
The second my friend and I got off the elevator, there were several people urging us over to (what I assume was) a promotional eyebrow job, but as I turned and looked at all the employees, they all had eyebrows that were almost completely shaven down, to where you knew they had to be drawing them on...and so that, mixed with my deep distrust of anyone wanting to mess with my eyebrows with something that buzzes and a pair of scissors, I politely declined.
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| Dr. SPA area |
We headed to the lockers, where we grabbed the complimentary towels (actually big enough to cover stuff, amazingly), and the nudity in every direction
was less shocking this time around for the most part. I'm not sure if was because I had a friend there to talk out loud to about all the weirdness, or if I had just gotten more used to it, but it was definitely less weird with someone, surprisingly? There are several different themed bathing areas (with pictures I'm going to steal from the Internet!) and when you first walk in you go through what's like a car wash--a bunch of sprayers click on and spray you from both sides, and then you emerge into this grand hallway with a large pool of water in the center, and a long "pool" on the left hand side. This area is called "Islam", and it was nice, as they all were--a lot of them were kind of like just sitting in a really hot jacuzzi, because there weren't a lot of added minerals or anything, but the ones that did were awesome. The Japanese themed ones outside were amazing, truly perfect, especially on a night like this was--in the 50s outside, with the water at 111 degrees F, perfect to stick your feet in and sit up on the ledge and just look up at the stars, letting the breeze cool you down. It was great. There were a few pool options in the outdoor area, with three (connected by rock walls) different temperature areas, plus two small, traditional Japanese tub-tubs, and there was an onsen out here that had what was like a giant teabag floating in it, so that one was cool. Overall, it was really good, a lot less traumatizing than my last experience, and I'm not sure if that's because less people were obviously glaring/looking at me (though we did have a few hostile looks from some old people), or if it's because I had someone to talk it out with and feel a little more brave with, or what, but it was a really good time.
Following this, we met up with some of our other friends and headed to Chifaja or whatever, which is a tabehoudai in Hirakata. It was amazing! It was only $22 for all-you-can-eat meat, side dishes and desserts, for a set amount of time (I want to say it was like, an hour or an hour and a half maybe?), and you have a grill in front of you that you cook it at. And man, we went hard. I had egg drop soup, a million different meats--including beef heart and tongue--from chicken to beef to pork, some various different vegetables, tortillas (<3), lettuce wraps, strawberry and chocolate ice cream, you name it, I ate it. It was quite possibly the best meal I've had here in
ages, and worth every penny. Amazing.
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| Anti-Abe sign at the protest in Kyoto |
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| Geisha in Kyoto |
Sunday I went to Kyoto with my speaking partner and my friend, and we did some shopping. I have officially finished all of my souvenir shopping, and I have managed to fit it all into one suitcase weighing under 50 pounds (somehow)! ...this, however, doesn't help me that much--I came here with two full suitcases at 52 pounds each, so uh, we're gonna see how this works out. Anyway, we just popped around Kyoto, meandered the streets, enjoyed each others company. I also saw a protest against the new Government Secrets Law just passed in Japan, where the government can officially declare anything they want a state secret and hide it from the public. So that was interesting.
After that we headed back, I packed and ate dinner, and then we went out for drinks with one of my RAs at Toriki. It was a lot of fun, and I tried lots of new things--Zima, a drink that started in the US but is now only marketed in Japan (tastes kind of like Smirnoff Ice), and some awesome cheese-potato-fried-pancake-like-thing. So good.
Overall, it has been a great weekend. I didn't have class today because it's finals week, and my last final is tomorrow. I leave for Taiwan on Friday and return on Monday, so my next blog will be late too. I'm so torn--so sad at how rapidly all the days are slipping away, because I can't even think about saying goodbye to this amazing experience, this beautiful country, and to all the wonderful friends I've made, yet so excited to go home and squeeze everyone and everything I love.
Random~~ Mercedes here have the wheel on the wrong side of the road (from them, so it's on our side). I've also seen a lot of other luxury cars (Porches, Lamborghini) that are on the right side of the car, oddly enough. You also, not surprisingly, only really see Japanese cars driving around, aside from the occasional Mercedes or Volkswagen. I have seen perhaps two trucks, one Ford, and a lot of random brands we don't have here, but no Kia's or anything else like that, not a lot of major diversity here. Guess that really shouldn't be very surprising. Oh well, thought it was interesting to note.
Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well. I have a cold, and I'm officially out of Zycam, but I hope it passes quickly so I can enjoy my last week and a half of being on this side of the world. Until next time, ja mata!
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