The day in Osaka was certainly an interesting one. For the first half, I was starting to think that it would be a disappointing stop, but things turned around rather quickly. So it’s been explained to me that Osaka is totally not a tourist’s city in the way that Kyoto and Tokyo are. No, it’s totally a place that’s all business. That’s why I got a little bit of a cold feeling from the city in my first few hours there. However, as the night went on and I got to see the side of the place that locals probably know intimately, and I found out why Osaka is a rockin’ place.

From Nagoya onward, we started travelling with two others. One is a friend of my friend, and the other guy is the friend of the friend of the friend. Ugh. There are three degrees of separation between us. That was…interesting.

Anyway, we left Kyoto for Osaka at about noon. After dropping off our bags in a coin locker, we headed for our first stop: the Umeda Sky Building. We wanted to check out the rooftop observatory. As expected, it gave great views of the city below. Osaka was fully spread out for us to enjoy. It was fantastic. For me, I was a little bit more excited about the place in that it was actually a stop in a leg of The Amazing Race 12. Whoo! Again, the TV world, and my experience has a little overlap in the Venn diagram of existence!

After eating, the four of us wanted to split off. The other two wanted to go check out an underwater tunnel and an aquarium. My friend and I on the other hand planned to head to the stadium. See, our original plans were to go see a baseball game of the Osaka Hanshin Tigers. The fans are reputed to be insane for this team, so we wanted to observe. The two of us were going to buy tickets early enough ahead of time but the other two indicated that they wanted to join in. They were supposed to get back to us early enough, but didn’t get to. When they finally did, all of the tickets were sold out. So, because of that we decided to go see if we can snag tickets from a scalper around the stadium. That’s why we decided to head there early.

Apparently, Japanese scalpers are a little different from what I’m used to seeing. Here in Japan, they’re supposed to be a little bit more discreet. You can see them holding up signs indirectly asking “Do you have tickets?” Uh huh. We figured it’d be easy enough to spot one. Unfortunately, we were proven wrong. We walked around the stadium several times and didn’t spot a single shady person. Actually, I’m sure we were the ones that looked shady. Every time we saw money changing hands we slowed down to see if anything was going on. After 2 hours of hunting, we gave up. If there were scalpers at the game, they were doing a poor job of trying to make money. During that time though, I was really fascinated with the fans in and around the stadium. So many people were decked out in the team colours of yellow and black. Everyone seemed so hardcore! I was really disappointed that we couldn’t get in because I wanted to see the fans all energized.

Well, after that disappointment, we picked up our stuff from the station and headed over to the hotel. I would have been content to just end the day at that point. Osaka didn’t grab my attention at all, and I was disappointed. I told this to my friend, and he said that I was crazy. He said that Osaka reminds him so much of New York. I didn’t see it. Well, he wasn’t ready to give up on me enjoying the place, so we decided to go eat someplace nice. After he did some research, he decided that we should go to this restaurant in Osaka that’s well known for its fugu.

Eh? Fugu? Yes. That’s the poison blow fish. Holy crap.

He wasn’t sure where it was exactly, but we decided to walk there anyway. After a short walk we made it to Shinsaibashi which is this long-ass covered shopping arcade. It was full of life and young people. We chose one direction and started walking down. I wasn’t fully paying attention to the signs, but somewhere along the way, I saw “サエラ” or “Saera” painted on a door. It suddenly clicked. Holy shit! That was the site of the flower-smelling road block for TAR12. Hah! Wow…two sites! Too bad the flower shop wasn’t open. Still, I found it interesting.

After an hour of wandering we still didn’t find the place. We dropped by a convenience store and checked out a map. As it turns out we were heading in the total opposite direction of where we were supposed to go. In time, another hour passed and I was started to get pissed. I mean, how long were we going to chase after a place that might not even exist? We did make it to the area where the place is located, but we were still wandering. Then, out of the blue my friend walks into store. It didn’t click right away, but as it turns out we finally made it. We decided to eat at a Japanese style table, low to the ground and on tatami mats. We ended up ordering a plate of fugu sashimi, fugu in a fried mayonnaise crab cake style preparation, and an order of Japanese beef shabu shabu. Whoo.

The sashimi they brought out was paper thin. It reminded me of wet rice paper–it was transparent. Sure, we were a little bit apprehensive about eating it. I mean, all I knew about fugu I learnt from that episode of The Simpsons where Homer eats fugu and thinks he’s going to die. We made a few jokes about dying by the time the morning rolls around. Afterwards, we dug in. Now, it certainly tasted good. It’s not really that much different from other sashimi, you know? I mean, here I was with the idea of the fish being all menacing and what not, and in the end it’s pretty much like everything else. To be honest, it was mildly a letdown. No, it wasn’t bad, but it’s like I was expecting something a little bit more dangerous. Does that make sense? The old woman that brought out the beef for shabu shabu was really doting on us. She wanted to make sure that we were doing it correctly and that us foreigners didn’t have a bad experience. It was mildly bordering on obsessiveness, but at the same time I really appreciated it. As we left, I made sure to get my friend to tell her that it was all delicious. When she heard it she seemed genuinely happy. In turn, that made me happy. Man, that was an experience!

Of course, it’s now days later and I’m still alive. Jason 1, Fugu 0.

After eating, we wandered around the Dōtonbori area, then back to Shinsaibashi. It was still full of energy and people buzzing around. I feel like I’d finally pierced Osaka’s shell, and started to appreciate the energy of the city as a whole. Seriously, I was starting to feel like I was seeing a great part of the city that wouldn’t hand itself over so easily. How can I explain this? It’s like, in some places, the things worth seeing are really apparent. In Osaka’s case, it’s so occupied with itself that it can’t just hand its good side over: you have to be willing to go at its pace and do the city on its terms. This is a place on the path that I now appreciate.