Japan - Day 1: Osaka
Osaka Castle and Dotonburi
We’re running many days behind on our posts because Uma keeps insisting we go out and explore the city instead of staying in and writing. A real troublemaker, this one. Anyway, here goes:
Our red eye flight from Hanoi landed in Osaka at 8am, but it took us another 2 hours to get through immigration, and get on the right trains to our hotel. We were a little sleep deprived at this point but we still couldn’t check into our room till 3pm. The hotel thankfully let us store our luggage, while we walked around to get our bearings. It was a rather rainy day, so we decided to first get lunch in the hope that things would clear up a bit by the time we were done. After a quick search on the Tabelog website (a Japanese Yelp equivalent), we found Enishi, a soba noodle restaurant.
As we walked over to the restaurant a small clothes store caught Uma's eye since they had several "sale" signs. The lady proprietor of the store was so very kind and helped us try a few things before Uma picked out a shirt to purchase. Japan is much colder than the hot tropical countries we've visited so far on our trip, and we (read: Uma) didn't really bring a lot of warm clothes with us as a result. Additionally, Japanese people are very well put together. This was immediately evident to us - women, men and children are all so elegantly dressed, not a hair out of place. We were a little dishevelled from the overnight travel and didn't quite fit in yet. Perhaps there would be some clothes shopping in our future here. Also, as a side note, everyone here seems to have clear umbrellas. Why is that...?
At Enishi, there were no English menus and the very kind waitress did not speak much English. However, with her help (and Google translate) we were able to order some delicious warm soba and tempura. As we ate, an elderly Japanese couple next to our table chatted with us a little about our trip - the wife started learning English when she was 57 and was quite fluent! We ended our excellent first meal in Japan with some matcha mochi.
Luckily, by the time we finished lunch, the rain had cleared up. We walked over to Osaka castle to explore the grounds and museum. On the way we saw some cherry-trees that had just started to bloom. While it was still early in the season, every pink tree we passed by had a small gathering of admirers taking photos of it.
The Osaka Castle grounds are walled and house many beautiful gardens and a moat within its 16 acres. We walked in past the large Otemon Gate and a few wooden turrets, admiring the many giant stone megaliths (some of them weighing over 100 tonnes!) that make up the walls. We walked around a little through various gardens and structures and eventually made our way to the tiered main tower of the castle. The main tower (along with many other parts of the castle) have been destroyed in battle and fire several (four) times, and subsequently rebuilt. We would later discover this is a recurring theme in many famous structures of Japan (due to the heavy usage of wood in construction). The most recent reconstruction of the castle was only completed in 1997.
The top (8th) floor of the main tower is an observation deck with a nice view of the castle grounds. The floors below it are a museum about the castle, with a large focus on its first residents, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and his clan. It was a little hard to follow the history and family tree just from the museum displays, but we were able to piece together that he was a samurai from Japan’s Sengoku period (late 16th century). He came from a humble peasant background and made his way to the top with the help of a great mentor (and by successfully killing many people). He liked to hold tea parties/tea ceremonies and loved his wife and children dearly, though he did occasionally order some loved ones to commit suicide (hara kiri) to quell rebellion, etc. We later learnt that Hideyoshi is quite a significant figure in Japan’s history and he is often credited for being the great unifier of Japan; prior to Hideyoshi, Japan consisted of a number of ruling clans. We will need to read more into the history here, but the Osaka Castle museum was a great peak into Japan’s martial past, feudal system, and early culture.
By the time we were done at the museum, we checked into our hotel. After a much needed nap, we headed to the lively Dotonburi area, perhaps Osaka’s most popular tourist destination. Han had a yakitori place earmarked for dinner, however when we got there, the staff told us (in Japanese) that they couldn’t seat us - we couldn’t really make out why but perhaps they were full for the night. We walked along the busy streets looking for a good alternative option and settled on a seemingly popular sushi place. Uma had decided that she would eat fish and chicken while in Japan because for one, vegetarian food can be a little hard to find in Japan if you don’t plan for it and two, this would open up more possibilities for Han to try different foods since he’d been somewhat restricted by Uma’s diet on the trip so far. After the relatively short wait, we both got the omakase sushi option for dinner and (even though Uma was nervous about eating it) we both really enjoyed our first sushi meal in Japan.
We spent the rest of the evening walking through the streets of Dotoburi watching both people and store fronts selling snacks and trinkets. The store front have a lot of neon signage and large cutesy imagery of octopuses, crabs, and cartoon figures. By the canal there are large LED ads on the buildings, marking the entrance to the shopping street Shinsanbashi-suji across the bridge. A recurring character at stores and restaurants is Billiken, a child-like doll figure who is found all over Osaka (and maybe even Japan). We later learned that he was actually created by an American art teacher from Missouri. There’s a story here we must later learn.
On the train back to our hotel we talked about the juxtaposition between the solemn, muted elegance of the people of Japan (mostly dressed in black and beige) and the vibrant, flamboyant characters they create in their anime and pop culture.
Another juxtaposition that’s hard to reconcile for us is the exceeding gentleness and reverence of the Japanese people we encountered today, against the cruelty of their imperial ancestors we learned about from the countries we just visited…
Intangible questions aside, even just one day in, we know Japan is going to be a wonderful time, and we look forward to the rest it.
Nugget of the day: Everything you've heard about the unique way of life in Japan is in fact, true. For instance, the toilets are in fact elaborate with various bidet jet settings and even seat temperature controls. Public toilets will sometimes make chirping sounds to mask the pee/poop sounds. Often toilets will also auto-flush just before you start to use them.
Wonderful and Worth the long waiting.
“everyone here seems to have clear umbrellas. Why is that...?”
-> To see the sky? 😄
“the juxtaposition between the solemn, muted elegance of the people of Japan (mostly dressed in black and beige) and the vibrant, flamboyant characters they create in their anime and pop culture.”
-> Nice you caught on to this. It seems the culture is somewhat suppressive of personal emotions, perhaps this is why they express themselves through vibrant art.
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Wonderful you got to make a trip to Japan!
Hope you can visit Kyoto.
And thank you for the blog and writing! ☺️