This will be my last blog from Osaka for a while. I’m sitting in the airport now, sipping on some coffee trying hard to stay awake long enough to board my plane. There was no real point in sleeping last night, so I have been awake longer than my body cares to support me through. I’m giving it coffee now to let it know that I’m calling the shots around here and I’m staying awake for now.
Last night, as did also occur the previous night I had people asking me about the differences between Japan and Korea. Having only spent a few days here I’m not really in the best position to summarize an entire country. Then someone said to me “I heard that Korean women are difficult”. It was an interesting statement. In my mind the person who assumes that there are women around who are not difficult is committing a grave error in judgement.
The funny thing about women (and partly the men too) is their hair. If you can imagine hair that’s really dry, colored a vibrant shade of vomit and is messed up like she hasn’t brushed it in a week AND had a particularly long night of restless slumber, then you might begin to see just how strange it looks when everyone has that hairstyle. Guys too, although they tend toward the sheek styles, ie. just a perm and five or six colors, blow waved into something resembling a lion’s mane. And I’m not talking about the strange people with extreme tastes. Without hesitation, everyone and I mean everyone has colored hair. No joke. And don’t even get me started on the amount of make-up. Let’s just say that essential bathroom cabinet items in a Japanese girl’s house would have to include paint stripper.
As for being difficult, well we’ll just take that as given.
I am disappointed that I didn’t wake up in time to go to Kyoto or somewhere out of Osaka. I have only been here a short while, but apart from the food, I don’t feel I really got a good taste of life here. Cities on the whole resemble each other too much. It’s in the life outside the city gates where you start to see the old culture at work. Next time, whenever that may be.
Today I did indeed have a session at a Karaoke place and I got a CD to prove it. 10 songs that I belted out are timeless classics, or possibly evidence against my ever going back there again. Whichever way you look at it, it’s something.
The CD made from Karaoke magic
Why am I saying ‘today’? It’s actually yesterday now. I did mention I hadn’t slept right? Anyway before I go let me tell you about this airport. It’s pretty cool. It is a huge dome-shaped building set about in three layers. It is bright and airy without being cold. There… oh it’s too hard to explain but it’s a masterpiece of structure and other stuff. A picture can tell a thousand or at least a couple of hundred words about it, cos I’m too tired to.
A bright, well-lit airport to blog in. What more could a tired traveler ask for?
There is another side to the terminal too, I went there before but it turned out to be a waste. The trouble with going places is that you have to go there to find out that it’s not worth going to. There were only a few shops and a lonely internet terminal with a couple of people who looked as though all life had been sucked out of them. The atmosphere was lightened by the duty-free shop girls spraying perfume about and looking busy as they opened their shop. A waft hit me squarely as I passed by a busy mixture of flowers and alcohol. Could it be classed as chemical warfare? Stun and serve, forcing an unwilling victim to shop til they drop. Or something. I don’t know I haven’t slept much.
I ate sushi today, I mean yesterday. It was extremely delicious. I ordered Salmon, Tuna and a white one. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it looked nice. Turned out to be octopus and chewing it was the most work my mouth has done in a long long time. After I was almost frothing at the mouth and trying hard gargle it in my sake in order to break down the proteins, I just decided to swallow it and let my stomach figure it out. And there it rests contentedly. How anyone can consider eating this stuff while it’s still alive is beyond me. Oh yes, in some places you can have your octopus still alive, wriggling around and sucking on your tongue. But probably the same people enjoy a nice bit of puffer fish, where in Japan the consumption of which causes around 60 deaths a year. Seems a bit risky for some ugly fish. But don’t ask me, I’ve just been here a couple of days and besides, I’m really quite tired.
And they’re calling my name now. Sayonara Osaka.
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