7/13/2023

Hello Blog Readers,

I’m happy to report that after a miserable day of travel yesterday (one that resulted in a near 24-hour day of me frantically flying and Ubering about America…and my luggage being lost by the airline), today’s flight to Japan was smooth sailing. The flight was long, but there were no issues other than me stinking kind of bad due to a lack of toiletries and clothing. I still don’t know my luggage’s status or where it’s presently located back in the US. I hope that it makes it back to me someday.

Traveling with me on this trip are my sister and brother-in-law, and after we landed in Osaka, we all found Japanese employees in general to be SO polite and helpful in all matters. Importantly, it made me realize what an impolite, Western ogre that I am in life; but pragmatically it also made getting through customs, gathering our JR passes, and navigating the trains to our hotel almost not stressful at all. The only ounce of stress during the experience was trying to decipher the train network (we have a decent idea of how it works now), and our realization that JR lines do not cover all trains in Japan (we’re traveling with JR passes during our journey – a must have if you’re a short term visitor to the country and hoping to use trains to get around city-to-city). Luckily, while the JR pass doesn’t cover every train, it covers most trains, and most importantly it covers the shinkansen running between the cities. Even if you find yourself in a situation where you need to travel a train line not covered by the JR pass, you can usually just take a JR train and get within pretty good spitting distance of where it is that you’re trying to get to in order to minimize expense – you can usually get within a few miles tops. So far the trains have been VERY convenient – and they are insanely punctual too. If only I had the reliableness of Japanese trains during my travels yesterday – it would have saved me a lot of headache and exhaustion.

Osaka has an aesthetic very similar to San Francisco – in the cities’ architectural styles, their status as “Bay Area” style metros, and with their laid-back, counter culture status in their respective countries. My sister, who lived in San Francisco during her undergraduate years, has so far seemed to have whatever the opposite of culture shock is during her time wandering Osaka’s streets – she seems shocked not by how different this Japanese city is from its American counterpart, but in how similar.

However, there are some differences between the two cities. Unlike San Francisco, Osaka is VERY humid, and with me having fully adjusted to my mild-weathered, Yooper life on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, it’s a struggle having to put up with being constantly drenched in sweat. Also, Osaka with its 17.5 million people is huge compared to San Francisco’s dainty 6 million people. And yet, both cities are mere babies compared to Tokyo – the biggest city on the planet boasting around 38 million people. We’ll be there soon enough on this excursion to Japan.

Anyways, getting back to the events of the day, we made it to our hotel, and fighting the jet lag desire to just go to bed, we decided to head out and wander the legendary streets, waterways, and alleys of Dotonbori, for me to stock up on the essentials seeing as my luggage got lost (I’m happy to report that I now have suitable toiletries, shirts, socks, underwear, and a small travel suitcase to get me through this trip…I’m no longer without luggage, and no longer stinky!); to try some of the local food like dumplings, takoyaki, yakitori, and okonomiyaki; to take in the infamous sites; and of course, to enjoy some fine alcoholic beverages during our journey through the streets (I love that you can just buy alcohol here at a konbini and casually drink it while strolling around the city with your friends). It was quite the experience. The energy on the streets was electric, everything just felt so much safer, cleaner and more fun than American cities, and I’ll let the photos do the talking!

Alright, I’ve been up for around 24 hours straight each of the past two days now, with only a few hours of sleep in-between (funny how that math somehow works when traveling through timezones…yes, you can have days that last more than 24 hours, and yes, you can be up for that long and have it only feel like one day has passed). I’m exhausted, and for the first time since leaving Marquette, I can finally get a good night’s sleep and look forward to a fresh change of clothes in the morning. 🙂 Tomorrow our goal is to explore Osaka a bit more, and then we’re going to bullet train up to Kyoto to see a more traditional side of Japan. Stay tuned!

Cheers,

-Rob