Today hasn’t gone quite to plan.
We both woke up with quite painful backs (truly tragic for a pair of 25 and 30 year olds), probably from all the walking yesterday, but got ready to head out to Nara to see the tame deer, and back into Osaka for one last hurrah. Unfortunately, as I was getting ready, I jarred my back which started spasming in intense agony. I spent the next three hours in a variety of positions, starting with huddling on the floor crying, with about a 3 degree range of movement, and progressing through to standing hunched over like Quasimodo (Saf being the encouraging gargoyle pal here).
The last time this happened was over a year ago, so I’d forgotten the pain and panic that hits me when I can’t move my back. Saf kept asking if we should call an ambulance, but our sum total knowledge of the Japanese language consists of four words, and I wasn’t sure how “konichiwa, hai, arigato, sayonara,” was going to help me very much in this situation. Instead, I spent the next few hours shuffling around like a baby learning to walk. By about 2ish I had gotten about 65% of my range of movement back, but not enough to be confident taking trains and walking around Osaka, as it was still seizing up every few minutes, and even walking up one step was an audible affair (in a few days, I’ll admit to it being whining, but for now I’m still feeling very sorry for myself.)
The silver lining is that, off all the days I could have picked to throw my back out, today was the least terrible, since a) we’re not travelling, b) we didn’t have major concrete plans or tickets booked for anything and c) it is the first day since we’ve been here that it has rained. So although I felt guilty spending a whole day in Japan stuck indoors, at least I wasn’t missing anything too major. Later in the afternoon, Saf headed off into Osaka to do a little solo sightseeing, as there was no point him sticking round and missing the day as well!
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SOOOO, enough of the whinging above, you have a new author here, Saf, if you hadn’t guessed. To be fair to Claudia she did look in quite a bit of pain, however as much as I felt sorry for her (my dear wife), there were sights to be seen.
After a quick google it was decided today was going to be spent in Shinsaibashi, the shopping district of Osaka, luckily mostly under shelter from the rain. Navigating the metro on your own is quite daunting, however after the initial panic I realised google would do all the work for me, the most exciting part of the metro was taking pictures of sleeping passengers.
I arrived at my destination and navigated my way to the shopping street, it was bursting with tourists and all sorts of shops ranging from high end designer to 100-yen stores, there was also McDonald’s next to the finest Sushi in town, something for everyone.
I managed to find a Starbucks and grab a coffee and take it all in for half an hour. I wandered around for a little while and found a gem of a comic store, down a tiny side street next to a Nike store I had just visited, as you can see from the pics I didn’t have a clue what I was looking at but it was still fun.
Claudia had messaged by now saying she was semi recovered and was on her way to meet me. It was chucking down with rain by now and I found shelter in an arcade, where Claudia would meet me. She doesn’t know this yet, but before she arrived I spent ¥3,000 trying to win a Japanese figurine which prob cost 500 yen at most, I was unsuccessful but Claudia will never know. Claudia now arrives so your author also changes……
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By about 5ish, my back had loosened up, and I was bored. We had earlier made plans to find Wagyu beef for dinner, since where else in the world would be better to try Japanese beef than in Japan. Now, I take dinner VERY seriously, and it was going to take a lot more than an aching back to make me miss it. I eventually creaked out of the flat, looking somewhat reminiscent of John Wayne, and headed off to the train to meet Saf in Namba. What I hadn’t anticipated was the absolute deluge that would greet me as soon as I left the station. It was rain on a biblical level. As if I had earlier told Saf to take my only umbrella!! I found him as quickly as I could; me, soaked through, him, enjoying himself in an arcade. We had a fun half hour wandering through the various floors, watching all the kids (ugh, how old am I!?) play video games they were clearly expert at, and eventually decided to have a go at an easy looking drumming game. Literally, it was just hitting a drum in time. And we were only okay at it. What is happening??
From there, we left to find dinner. As we were hunting, we passed one of Japan’s many Pachinko halls. I’ve been saying since we arrived in Japan that I wanted to give it a go, since apparently it is the new craze. Unfortunately we were terrible. Between us, we couldn’t make head nor tail of the game, even with three different attendants trying to show us what to do. Defeated, but not particularly disappointed, we headed off for dinner.
Oh Lordy. I mean, the best beef in the world is hardly going to be anything less than amazing, but we couldn’t anticipate just how good it was going to be. We found a restaurant selling Wagyu, where they brought you slices of whatever beef section you order, along with a charcoal grill that you cook the meat over yourself. Wagyu is particularly good because the fat is marbled through the whole muscle and has a low melting point, which basically means the flavour runs through all the meat and keeps it tender. We ordered a few different cuts, including premium loin and “tsurami” which apparently is “face parts”, and every bit was beyond delicious. As you ate, you could send further orders via an iPad on your table which tracked the total cost of your order; ours was actually pretty reasonable, but the couple opposite us was on a bill of over £100 by the time we left, and they didn’t look like they were stopping any time soon, and tbh I didn’t blame them. It’s that kind of meal that you keep thinking about days later.
On the way back to the station, we passed a cheesecake stall which I had seen recommended on a blog about visiting Osaka, so we decided to buy one to take home for a late dessert. I mean, it serves about 8, and we really weren’t hungry, but when in Osaka, do as the Osakans do, and there was a pretty big queue ahead of us, so it must have a good reputation. I have to say, after a tempestuous start to the day, we were feeling pretty satisfied with ourselves as we took the train back from our last night in Osaka.
However. The drama STILL wasn’t over. As we finally got back to Doi station, we had an exchange reminiscent of Monica and Rachel in the first series of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. (“I said, ‘Got the keys??'”, “No, you said, “Got the keeeeeys!”) We realised, rather fractiously, that neither of us had brought the keys that would let back into the building that our apartment was in. The apartment itself opened with a lock code, so it was just the main front door that we were trapped outside of, but at close to 11 on a Thursday evening, we really didn’t know what to do. I approached a man at the side of the building, who was carrying a basket of washing to ask if he lived in the building, but his look of confusion and borderline terror told me that he neither lived there, nor understood what I was saying. I’ll be honest, I was getting so worried by this time, and was not looking forward to having to sleep on a doorstep outside a 7-Eleven, but THANKFULLY some god was smiling down on us, as a young resident happened to be leaving the building and cheerfully held open the door for us, laughing as we hurriedly explained what had happened.
WHAT A DAY!!! We had a calming slice of cheesecake (absolutely delicious, by the way. So light and airy) before heading to bed to get ready for a day of travelling to Narita tomorrow. I’m currently praying to Asklepios and his daughters to mend my back for tomorrow 🙏🙏🙏
Byeeee
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Claudia Bow 