Osaka - 13 Oct

Strange Encounters.

Susumu and Rika picked us up in the morning and we headed off to the Osaka Aquarium. Osaka is the business capital in the south and Susumu said that apart from the Aquarium and the Osaka castle, there wasn’t much to see here. So the Aquarium it was. I’ve never been to the one in Sydney, so I was impressed with the walkthrough, though the kids assured me the one in Sydney was heaps better.

The two things that will stick in my mind about the aquarium were the two huge whale sharks that were in the largest tank. They were 4-5 meters long and just kept swimming around and around the huge tank. They had 15 or so hangers on each and in the distance they looked big, but when they swam by the glass directly in front of you they were breathtaking.

As we walked along Zoe spotted what appeared to be a chip in the ‘glass’, like when a small stone takes a chip out of a windscreen about the size of her fingertip. I had a bit of a giggle with Zoe saying she’d have to save us all like the boy in the story of the dutch ‘boy and the dike’ and then tried to explain in Japanese to Susumu and Rika the story of the ‘boy and the dike’, but my explanation was lost in translation as is often the case. For a while after that, all we could do was hypothesis as to what we would do if the glass broke but by the time we got to the end of the tour, we were amazed to see a ‘block ’of the Perspex that the main tank is made out of and it is 30 cm thick!

After we left the tank area we spotted a ‘touching tank’and of course made our way there. We were amazed to see a pool which was about the size of an outdoor backyard pool and about 60 -80 cm deep. Swimming around in there were dozens of small sharks and some stingrays ranging from some small ones to huge black one. We all washed our hands at the taps to the entrance and then almost ran to the edge of the pool. We started out a bit hesitant, but after a few pats of the sharks, we built up the courage to ‘pat’ the stingrays. They were very smooth and slippery and felt like soft warm rubber. It was almost like they enjoyed the experience as if they swam up to us to let us say ‘hello’. It was an absolutely amazing experience and was very difficult to tear ourselves away from them. When we finally did, I said a silent thank you to these amazing creatures for giving us so much pleasure.

The day had turned out to be a scorcher and when we got outside, there was quite a crowd sitting out on the concrete watching a busker. As we got closer we saw what turned out to be a Canadian ‘magician’ busking. That in itself wasn’t that amazing as there are quite a few foreigners in Osaka, but what surprised me and tickled my fancy, was that he not only spoke very good Japanese, but he spoke in the Osaka dialect (having spent 5 years here), which is quite different to Tokyo dialect. In some instances it’s quite different and very cute. We stayed till the end and were not only amazed at how good he was, but also that he was dressed in black long pants and long shirt and a vest in this weather! He was dripping wet and his act was of course quite physical, so we figured he earned his money today.

We had lunch at a nearby mall and after we walked around, we again realised, that malls the world over are one and the same. We did a small amount of shopping and then headed for Osaka Castle. We knew it was getting late in the day, but we couldn’t leave Osaka without showing the kids this beautiful castle. It was close to closing time, so we bought an icream and had a short wander through the grounds.

As we were leaving the castle, we spotted an old man walking a large Iguana. No it’s not a typo, it really was an Iguana on a leash. Then as we got closer, we saw a lady with a crate on the back of her bike, with two Iguanas! One had a feather boa around it’s neck, the other was an amazing greenish colour. As we got closer we had a bit of a chat to her and the kids were delighted to be able to give them a bit of a pat.

The other strange thing we saw while walking around the castle grounds, was a man pushing a pram while his wife walked the dog next to him. Not that strange a sight I hear you say, but as they came closer the kids shouted to us in amazement, that the pram didn’t contain a baby, but a dog! Yes, very weird I hear you say, but considering the number of dog clothing and accessories stores in Japan, where you can find anything from jackets, jewellery, all kinds of clothes, even a bridal dress!, not so strange I guess.

After a stop off at a soccer shop, we made our way in to have another famous Osaka meal, ‘kushiyaki’, basically food on skewers. Very yummy as they are lightly battered and deep fried, so not surprisingly the kids loved them. The restaurant was very busy and we needed to take a seat and wait while a table became vacant. While we sat chatting, I saw out of the corner of my eye a lady in her 60’s maybe though she could have been older, chatting to Grant sititng a couple of seats away from me. I made out that she was asking where he was from in English with a strong Osaka accent. Grant was saying Áustralian ’though she kept hearing ‘Sweden’. Anyway, she had just finished her meal and had a type of ice cream biscuit with ‘Japanese Green Tea’ ice cream in the middle. After pinching Grant on the cheek, she tried to get him to have a bite. Grant kept pulling his head away, but after a bit of a laugh, Susumu said it’d be fine for him to take a bite and he did. She was very animated and in the end gave him the ice cream to keep. Rika told me it was the Osaka way and that people in Osaka are very friendly and in your face type people, which I had heard before, but never really experienced. After she left, we were shown to our table and after explaining to the waiter what had just happened, he took the ice cream and put it into the fridge for him to have later!

After dinner, we walked around and enjoyed Osaka’s nightlife. Again, like in Tokyo, although it was a week night and quite late, the streets and restaurants were packed!