Japan

Kaohsiung is often described as the “anti-Taipei” in much the same way as Osaka is the anti-Tokyo or Marseille is the anti-Paris. This view is very much true. In practical matters it holds true as much as it does in abstract. Kaohsiung is connected to its airport by its underground system. Taipei is connected to its airport by bus and only bus. I am not especially fond of buses and avoid them whenever possible preferring trams, trains and subways. There is something uncivilised about buses. Perhaps it is the tendency of peasants to use them as a favoured means of transport? But that is not relevant to this topic, so I will digress. After a long morning of walking about Taipei I took the bus to the airport to fly to Osaka. The security check was fast and pleasant. No aggro, no hassle. Everything was scanned, the metal detector did not sound as I went through and an exit stamp was duly affixed to my passport.

Having chosen to be early rather than late, I had a fair amount of time left at airport. Time that was duly put to good use – that is, I found the first coffee shop and had a passable espresso and a slice of cake before heading off to one of Taipei-Taoyuan’s pleasant leather seats which are perfect for naps. The flight to Osaka was also pleasant. In the waiting are I noted that there were only two others on a full flight with an obviously non-East Asian appearance. As it was, we were sat near each other – one of them next to me. All three of us were German citizens. Throughout the flight we enjoyed chatting a bit about our time in the region and our immediate plans. The woman who sat next to me spent the prior month in Hong Kong on business, an experience she thoroughly enjoyed. She was travelling with a co-worker, a Hong Konger, to Taiwan and Osaka for business meetings and sight-seeing before returning to Stuttgart. Despite my protests, she found my German to be rather amusing. Having spoken German and English from almost the same point in my life, the two have merged together resulting in my speaking English with a distinct German accent and speaking German with a distinct English accent.

Kansai Airport which serves the Osaka region is a masterpiece of engineering. Built on an artificial island in Osaka’s harbour, its night views are stunning. The lights of the city glistened like jewels on black velvet as we entered our final approach. Those arriving must take a train from the terminal to passport control and customs – not dissimilar to Paris Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, except cleaner, faster, more efficient and with fewer French people. Passport control, as usual, went quickly. Within 3 minutes I was called up and a sticker was attached. The next bit was rather less pleasant, but one clearly survives these sorts of things. After collecting my luggage – a single small suitcase – I proceeded to customs where, as a non-Japanese citizen, was subjected to a thorough search of my luggage. The customs official spared nothing. Every single garment was looked through, including dirty clothes separated from the rest by a thick plastic bag. Still, it was not completely unpleasant. The official clearly did not relish the task and he made it subtly clear that it was an absurd policy, but a rule is a rule. Having found nothing he put everything back in its proper place – and better than it had been originally before letting me go.

The train to Osaka itself was dear, but clean, pleasant and prompt. The person who was supposed to meet me at airport asked if he could meet me at Shin-Osaka Station, the main shinkansen and airport train station. Agreeing to this I had not sought clarification concerning the exact location of a meeting point which resulted in my spending two hours standing aimlessly at the East Gate waiting for someone who spent two hours standing aimlessly at the West Gate. Wanting to do little more than go to my hotel and sleep, I gave up and took a taxi. The driver at first was dismayed that it was only a short and not very profitable ride for him, but relented when he realised that I was insistent and that a little bit of money is better than none. Before long he sympathised with my position. The hotel, while in a relatively convenient location, was difficult to find at night. He had to ask another driver for help. Check-in was quick and easy, my room on the 11^th storey facing the airport in the distance allowing for brilliant views of landing aircraft and sun rises over the harbour. If one could be persuaded to get up before sunrise, of course. The hotel was a very Japanese concept: “business hotel”. In a relatively tall building, the rooms were very small and basic. A small bed, a small desk, a small television and refrigerator which both fit into the desk and a miniscule shower/bathtub combination sharing the same cubicle with a Japanese toilet and a miniature sink no bigger than David Cameron’s sense of judgement in coalition partners. What more, “non-smoking” in a Japanese business hotel non-smoking room is optional. Nevertheless, it was clean and cheap. The total for five nights including the weekend came to under 20,000 yen or £125.

After giving my contact, from now on to be referred to as the Koala my hotel address and room number, we agreed to meet the following evening. My first day in Osaka was thus underwhelming. I slept late and took my time to get started. Finding the train station I managed to find my way to the main shopping and eating part of the city. The first meal was a freshly-cooked Osaka-style Okonomiyaki. Streaky rashers, cabbage and egg in a savoury cake with shaved dry fish, spring onion and a savoury-sweet sauce finished with a small portion of mayonnaise. I managed to thoroughly get lost on my way back to the hotel room learning in the process that another station was a mere 5 blocks from my hotel. The Koala came earlier than promised and we chatted for a while, the two of us not having seen each other since the last time I was in Japan. We met a few more times in Osaka before I left the city for other adventures in Japan, including at a Café Meissen, a Café Bahnhoff, an absolutely sublime Italian trattoria where food was prepared correctly and a few major sites throughout the city. Our travels together were marked mostly by his inability to say anything as I barely paused to breathe the entire time we were together. The two of us have a long tradition of uneven levels of verbosity. He barely speaks, I barely stop speaking – something unusual. While social, I rarely talk an undue amount. One day, a Sunday, we went together to Kobe. Having already been to Kyoto and being thoroughly underwhelmed by it, I was not inclined to go again. One of the first things we saw was a live performance by a young Japanese singer-songwriter, Nobumasa Makoto. I was thoroughly impressed by his performance and the heart he put into his music. Impressed enough to spend £9.50 on a CD, something almost unimaginable for someone who cannot abide guitar players in general. (It’s not the guitar itself, it is simply that so many under-talented youth play it because they think they have a message to spread with their “music”. Which they don’t. The minute I see young people taking guitars out I quit the general vicinity post-haste)

Osaka is a bit dull. It’s a city for business, for commerce, for shopping and for eating. There are relatively few museums or parks. Very few old structures remain, the city having been thoroughly destroyed during the Second World War. Osaka Castle, or at least its 1930s-era reconstruction, was interesting. A friendly volunteer guide offered to show me around the castle grounds. He was a pensioner trying to keep himself busy. Osaka Castle was the stronghold of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the three men along with his predecessor, Oda Nobunaga and his successor, Tokugawa Ieyasu who unified Japan following the Warring States Period which followed the implosion of the Ashikaga Shogunate. Destroyed twice by fire following the Summer War in 1615 in which Tokugawa forces destroyed the Toyotomi Clan in order to dispose of the only true threat to their position as the paramount clan among clans governing Japan. It was rebuilt by the Tokugawa and used as a centre for politics and administration until the Meiji restoration in 1868. During the Meiji era the castle was destroyed again – this time by a fire resulting from a lightning strike. With no shortage of irony, a much smaller version of the castle was re-built in the 1930s with funding from public donations – across from the seat of the Japanese Army. Where the command was given to start the Imjin War against China and Korea in the late 16^th century, the 20^th century invasion of China was at least partially directed.

After 5 nights in Osaka I took the shinkansen to Hiroshima. The hotel is the same I stayed last year, although this year my luck was better. After checking in I brought my luggage to my room. When reserving the room I requested a room with a view of the river and, when walking past the side of the building facing the river was initially disappointed. This disappointment did not last long. My room did not face the river bank, but it had a view of the river as it flowed to the west along with much of the city and the A-Bomb Dome with a view of the mountains in the distance. The leaves were starting to change colour. That night I watched the sun set over the far mountains, over the river. The next two days were fun, but hampered by a typhoon. This did not prevent me from taking the tram to the other side of the Hiroshima region, to the Hiroshima Transport Museum. It also did not prevent me from going to the Hiroshima Art Museum which was exhibiting paintings from the Hague School.  Meals consumed included oysters à la escargot, Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki (rather different from the Osaka version. The Hiroshima version comprises stacked layers of pasta, cabbage, streaky rashers and in this case, squid between two thin savoury crêpes), mushroom soup, Japanese beef rice cakes and an afternoon tea with my favourite Japanese language teacher on my final day.

The meeting with my Japanese teacher went longer than expected – we were having far too much fun chatting – and I managed to reach my train for Tokyo with under 3 minutes to spare before departure. In under four hours I was in Tokyo. The city is tremendously large and pulsing with life. It is also confusing. The taxi driver simply could not find my hotel and had to ask 5 people for assistance, including the police before he finally found out – one block from a train station which would have been easy for me to access otherwise had Google Maps bloody been co-operative. Which it wasn’t. My memories of Tokyo are a blur of confusion mixed with some brilliance. The hotel was clean and convenient – although my room was on the other side of the street from the train station.  The Tokyo National Museum of Western Art had a temporary exhibit on Michelangelo’s works including his first sculpture, the Madonna of the Stairs as well as rare sketches and letters in his hand. I also visited Ueno Zoo spending much of the time looking at their five Eastern Grey Kangaroos. Their giant panda was outside, but even from a distance it was underwhelming. Fat and lazy it simply laid on the ground taking a nap as herds of Japanese school girls screamed “Kawaii! Kawaii!! KAWAII!!!” while taking pictures. The kangaroos were much more interesting. They actually moved about, fought, ate and showed some sort of expression. The petting zoo was also far more fun. I quite like rabbits and enjoyed that experience. That evening I travelled by underground to Chiyoda to see the Imperial Castle at Sakuradamon and walked to the National Diet, the Japanese parliament building before returning haphazardly to my hotel. I was thoroughly lost and so shaken by the crowds that I spent the rest of the evening locked in my hotel room making snide comments on a newspaper website.

On my final morning in Tokyo I met a young Japanese acquaintance, an old friend of the Koala whom I have met on every holiday in Japan. He was kind enough to take me around parts of Tokyo near the hotel and get me to the main train station in time for my return to Osaka and my final night in Japan. Communication was hampered by his limited English and my even more limited Japanese, although we did manage a few laughs and exchange a few stories of our travels – his on a recent company holiday to Cebu, mine of Québec and the UK. He is a good sort. A bit rough and fond of the bottle, but honest and generous with his time and money he insisted on treating me to coffee and, after I insisted on paying for lunch for both of us, he bid his adieux while giving me two boxes of Japanese cakes to bring back with me to Minnesota.

That final train ride was beautiful. The sun had broken at last. The skies were clear, the skies were turning blue and pink, yellow and orange over a green earth. The rainfall left many puddles which reflected the sky and clouds. I wished almost to shed a tear. The sky was so beautiful. My final night in Osaka was spent working. I had to enter exam marks for a class in which one out of five could not spell or fill in his or her name correctly. I went to my favourite Osaka bakery at Umeda and bought enough for breakfast. My flight left early the next morning. I was not quite sure what to think on the way to San Francisco. My flight to Hong Kong was lovely. One of the air hostesses thought that I was sweet and that my Japanese was even cuter and spent half the flight chatting with me. The aeroplane, an Airbus A330, was nice and well-maintained. The Hong Kong-San Francisco route was somewhat less pleasant. After my boots set off the alarm, I was thoroughly searched before being sent on my way to be thoroughly searched again at the gate. Only two countries require that final search – Australia for reason of environmental protection, highly understandable considering the delicate ecosystem there and the United States for purposes of security, although I suspect breaking the will of all to live is closer to the truth.

Author: Christopher-Dorset

A Bloody Kangaroo View all posts by Christopher-Dorset