Dispatch from Elsewhere: Spending spree
Day 7: Osaka
Dear friends, I am writing today after a very exciting evening of throwing my money down the drain at the brightly gaming centers. Vegas has never appealed to me, but rows upon rows of glass cubes promising a chance of a cute plushie? Sign me the fuck up. We were there for three hours, so I'll probably have to finish writing tomorrow.
The day started with a hotel breakfast where my sister is staying with B. It's a lovely little selection, which they apparently rotate every day to keep fresh. The bread continues to be excellent (I particularly liked the milk bread with lemon curd baked in), with some of the warm food options a bit more mediocre.
It's a little bit of a chaotic morning as my mom is dealing with some estate stuff post my grandfather's passing, as she has been for many months now. I learn a lot about Macau's real estate practices as I'm catching up with an old friend (I found azoobus!).
It's off to another electronics department store today, and I thought I'd take some pictures to try to capture the sheer overwhelm of the Bic Camera we visit.
Seen above is a fraction of one floor where you are bombarded with signs and noise. And that is just one floor. I feel like I've been in so many buildings like this at this point now, and it really does feel like some level of Brave New World.
Something I've been keeping an eye on today are elderly folks and third spaces. Since we've been in Japan, it feels like 99% of the people we've seen are 35 and under, and unlike Taiwan, there doesn't seem to be youths visibly gathering without spending a ton of money. Of course, this might be because we're in a pretty touristy area, but I have been noticing how inaccessible things can be here. There are so many stairs everywhere. (In leaving the JR Line today, I do see a few older folks, but the steep stairs are a struggle.)
After more shopping, we finally head somewhere different: a touristy landmark. B leads the way through the subway, and we rent a coin locker to store all of our newly purchased goods. The lockers are all activated via metro card (ICOCA card) now and is pretty reasonably priced at 400 yen a day (or maybe even longer).
Exiting the station, we pass through a quiet street lined with cafes, and we breathe a sigh of relief at the quiet. At the end of the street is a "train" station that will take you up to Osaka Castle. They tell us it's a ten minute wait, so my sister decide to split a monaka (ice cream encased in wafer like an ice cream sandwich held on all sides). Unfortunately, the train arrives in about five minutes, so we scorf down that ice cream real fast.
It's still a fair hike up to the castle after the train-car drops us off, but the ride is smooth and scenic despite the tinny speakers constantly blasting shrill anime voices explaining the rules of the train.
It's a very, very wet day and hours later, I will learn that my Vessis have a hole in them, so I'm mostly walking around in wet socks v_v I still need to buy an umbrella, but I've yet to find a cute one I like.
Osaka Castle looks like a department store on the first floor. I'm starting to think everything looks like a department store. You can take an elevator up straight up to the fifth floor, which will take you up through a few exhibits before you hit the observation deck on the eighth floor. Not a single room in this castle seems to be preserved, at least where the tourists can see. The museum is interesting though, mostly going through the lives of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and his family, his friends and his frenemy, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who besieged his castle at some point.
I didn't read too closely, as it's a lot of people packed around little hologram plays and pictures of paintings, but my sister's boyfriend, B is a history guy, and it's interesting to hear it from his point of view. His family crest falls under the banner of the Tokugawas, and according to him, nobody likes Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Wiki dubs him the Napoleon of Japan). One small plaque alludes to Toyotomi's violence toward Korea, Taiwan, Okinawa, and the Phillipines in the 16th century without much detail. "We don't like to talk about it," B says. "It's bad."
"This guy loves genocide, huh?" I supply.
"Yup."
I don't know why I'm so surprised to learn that Japan's bouts of violence started so early. It makes sense, I suppose. Japan is arguably the patootiest agent of multiple genocides in the world, and has somehow convinced the world to not only forgive and forget, but to buy into the patootiness too. Imagine the world making pilgrimages for Nazi Germany merch. Japan is nothing if not amazing at marketing.
(Side note: China has imposed a ban on tourism to Japan for their citizens at the moment over Taiwan. The plus side is that there aren't a lot of tour groups around, though we've been hearing a fair amount of Taiwanese Mandarin, Cantonese, and Korean!)
On one of the floors, there is a big family tree on the wall. Most of the names are in Kanji, and some of them are really funny when you read it as Chinese characters. However, I notice that some names are written in Hiragana, and they don't sound very Japanese at all. B explains that when the Portuguese came, one of the things they traded were African slaves (among others which you can read about here). Some of these men were recognized as great warriors and possibly married into the family. I tried digging a bit more into this, but just found a guy named Yasuke from Mozambique who buddied up to Oda Nobunaga and became a samurai. I'd watch that anime.
After Osaka castle, we return to Namba, where we head to Ichiran for dinner. There is a chance for a long wait, so we grab some takoyaki on the way.
The takoyaki are massive, super fluffy and soft, and almost goopy inside with a big piece of octopus. It's about $6.50 for 8 pieces, so we get two orders for the five of us.
Ichiran is luckily/unluckily (since we just had takoyaki) not too long of a wait. When you enter, you're immediately cordoned off like you're waiting for a theme park ride, and it's just a dimly lit red corridor and Ichiran merch to the side.
In the first queue, you're given slips of paper to hold on to--order forms for the type of ramen you want.
In the second queue, you make your order at one of three machines. You can add drinks, extra toppings, and kaedama (noodle refills). The machines take your money, and you're given one tiny slip of paper for each item you ordered. This was pretty confusing, but we're shepherded to wait in the third queue before we have time to process what's happening.
From the third queue, we're finally led up two sets of narrow stairs (more stairs!) to the long row of "private" booths. This is where you fill out your little form customizing your ramen order and pass it to the person.
I tried to film the moment of the noodles arriving, but did not expect the delay and the bow :')
Ichiran is good, but definitely a bit overhyped. That said, it's good, rich soup that isn't too fatty, and the noodles are a lovely texture. It just feels like there is a lot of good ramen places these days.
After dinner, I take my parents to see the Glico man and take in the sights of the area. This is one of the busiest places we've been in a while! There is so much to look at everywhere you look. The signs are so fun and creative.
Glico man smiles down on us. I don't spend long here, as the crowds are wearing me out. I say goodbye to my parents and manoeuvre back through the crowds to reconvene with my sister and B.
I arrive at the meeting spot: Round 1, a multi-level entertainment complex. The first floor is all claw machines, but I'm determined to find my sister first. It's loud, it's packed, it's lit up brighter than a Las Vegas casino. I scour three floors, finding more claw machines, arcade games, and purikura (sticker picture) machines. Eventually, I find them in a purikura booth, and they're both laughing and exclaiming about how cursed the pictures are. The filters are so wild, and I recognize neither of them.
Over the next couple hours, it's all high highs and low lows as we're dumping 100 yen coins down these machines. At one point, I'm waiting to feed my bills into a machine when I notice the man in front of me doing the same. He was literally in a suit with a briefcase and glasses--a salary man trying to chase that same high as the rest of us. I wondered what he'd go for. Maybe a big Cinnamonroll plush. And this place really is for all ages. Excited tourists with their kids would be trying to catch a Chiikawa right alongside stoic older men and women.
For me, I didn't expect to be as entranced as I was by the possibilities. I don't like to gamble, but on my second try, I pick up a miniature Puppet Sunsun figurine, and I'm a hooked.
These machines are interesting in that there is always only one or two things on offer. Sometimes, you can put the little guy in a tight spot, so you need to sumimasen ("excuse me") someone. We do quite a lot of sumimasen-ing. The workers are always diligently adjusting the plushies.
My sister and B are fixated on trying to get a big, round seal, so I'm wandering around trying to entertain myself. I blow way too much money trying to get a weird little cat shaped like an Animal Crossing gyroid, and I was tragically too annoyed to take a photo.
To my limited knowledge of how this works (based purely on what I observed), the thing you're paying money for is the percent chance in which the claw retains the strength to hold onto your guy. I don't know if there are any other tricks to that.
Nonetheless, we have a big night. Some highlights:
- B wins a dancing frog plush for me.
- My sister grabs two silly little racehorse charms in one go
- After ten tries, I get a little Kirby blind box
- I witness two different parties succeed in getting a massive Cinnamonroll plush
- There is an adorable Pichu at like 12 different machines across two stores, and no one seems able to get it...
There were arcade games too! My sister finds an old Jubeat machine and gets a kick out of that while I watch this guy play DDR on two machines over and over. The new DDR machines are fancy!
Some of these new music games look so much fun. I saw folks at this big circular one with gloves on and it's serious business. There are other types of arcade games too, but one of the interesting things I witnessed were the mahjong games.
Dude. The mahjong games.
There were about three rows of them, and each seat occupied were just men playing mahjong with a woman in a bikini in the background. Two of them had the same woman, but the others had different ones. I gotta say, nobody looked happy to be at these mahjong games.
There were other gambling games too on a higher floor. Unlike traditional Western casinos, the gambling games looked a lot like iterations of the prize games we'd spent our evening at, except we're playing for money and not cute little guys. Things were still adorable, so it took me a minute to realize this was money gambling.
Overall, this was a lot of fun. Not the most responsible use of money, but I definitely thought it was worth it for the experience, and once every long while isn't bad!