Dispatch from Elsewhere: a "rest" day
Day 8: Osaka
My entire morning was spent catching up on rest and my blog! I woke up feeling hella sore all over, so this was much needed despite my parents' antsiness.
Our plans for the next few days are a bit all over the place, so we try to take it a step at a time.
First, we head out toward Glico Man for a late lunch. A few things we saw on the way:
Lunch is a kushikatsu restaurant on the main strip with a lot of fun signs--B picks one bearing a scary giant golden baby. The restaurant itself is surprisingly low-key with not a lot of folks inside. B orders a bunch of stuff for us as it's mobile only, and my sister excitedly presents me with some gifts they procured on their side quests that morning.
Kushikatsu is interesting. It looks like tempura, but it's a different batter and texture. Like tempura here, the flour coating is very thin, often sliding right off the little gem inside. Kushikatsu sauce is also different from tempura, with less sweetness and more umami, vinegarish flavour.
B tells us that this was a go-to university meal for him when he studied here. I was feeling pretty meh about fried foods, but I like this a lot more than I thought. I liked just about everything I tried, but my favourites were the mochi, eggplant, corn, and pumpkin.
After lunch, we head over to Donki for souvenirs for my parents. This one is way bigger than Taiwan, but also seems to have five times more people. It's a horrendous experience...I guess I still had fun bleeding cash though.
Tragically, I'd written a bunch of stuff at the izakaya while I was drinking and having yakitori, but in my stupor, I seemed to have lost all of that data.
I think I wrote something about spending an hour in the hotel trying to learn how to play the Otamatone, trying my best to play even one note of "My Heart Will Go On" in a YouTube tutorial I watched.
After showing off my amazing Otamatone skills to my parents, who simply smile and nodded politely, we went off to reconvene with my sister at Namba Park. We ascended an escalator and was greeted with the Namba Park sign, and I don't know why I am devastated to find not an inch of grass, but yet another department store. Yet another concrete labyrinth of multiple buildings growing out of the train station like some kind of chimera.
It's a frantic dash to closing time as we zoom through a few stores in search of something or another (at this point, I don't even know). A few highlights:
At closing, B and I do a little chant/dance around my sister: "Niku! Biru! Niku! Biru!" We're ready for chicken and beer.
We head to the yakitori place, a little izakaya only a few minutes away, and the energy is electric. It's a super narrow shop despite having lots of tables, and it's cozy with half-walls dividing up the spaces. My sister and B order for the table, and as I wait, I'm feeling my soul drift away leisurely as it observes the tables around us. The girl to our right is by herself, enjoying a big mug of beer and a few skewers on her own. The table to our left are two older ladies, not quite obachans, but aunties perhaps. They were there before we arrived, and likely hours after we left. They had such an array of food on top of the bottomless cabbages, not a lot of drinks, and seemed to simply be enjoying each other's company.
The chicken gizzards are by far my favourite. I miss that texture and flavour so much--that soft little crunch and that umaminess. It's been years since I'd had any. Crispy chicken skin is my sister's favourite. It's soooo lovely--flavourful and surprisingly not oily and light.
We also get a lot of drinks tonight. Here is what I remember:
- My lemon sour: refreshing and lovely
- Cassis milk: dangerously delicious as you barely taste the alcohol
- lychee and gin with soda on ice: really freaking good
- non-alcoholic red been milk: it's a red bean popsicle dunked into a cup of milk with some whip cream on top. Literally. Stick and all. Naturally, flavour melded beautifully over the course of the night.
- umeshu with soda on ice: reaaaaally good, but I had it at the end and was definitely feeling the alcohol a bit
Food was good too! There wasn't a barbequed item I didn't enjoy.
After dinner, B and I are slightly feeling it from all the extra drinks we consumed, so we wandered over to the Magic store and I'm pondering and pondering at the selection. I decide to throw some money away at the royal lottery or whatever it's called. Brandon joins me and ends up with a $400 Tifa card. I gain about $25 in value with my own pull, and it feels like a real good night.
Tomorrow, my sister and I are headed to the aquarium. Hopefully, there will be a 24 hour reprieve from department stores.
And! I have made up my mind not to get the Smiski lamp. I got this instead:
PS. I transferred my phone number to a new phone, but can’t use the new phone yet, so sadly no texting until I get back unless you find me on Signal!