Mobbed in Osaka

J—-’ retelling of Ginger’s rock star treatment in Osaka:

We`re walking across the vast plaza outside the shiny new Osaka Aquarium.

Spread over the area are groups of young school children eating their lunch. Neatly dressed in sailor suits these 7 and 8 year olds each their own little picnic blanket, drink bottle and lunchbox. There must have been a thousand of them.

One of the little munchkins pops up in front of us and sticks his hand out. `Hello, how are you?` he says in a slightly clipped accent with a big smile on his face.

I stop and shake his hand and he repeats the activity with Christine and then Ginger in her pusher.

Suddenly another one pops up, `Hello, how are you?`. Then another, `Hello, how are you?`, and `Hello, how are you?`. They start coming faster than we can respond to them and before you know it we`re swimming in a sea of smiling, outstretched hands.

I was able to make a break for it, with Peta on my back I could dodge and weave and break free from the crowd. Poor Christine though; bogged down with the pusher and unwilling to abandon Ginger she was trapped. It was like a scene from a Warner Brothers cartoon where Sylvester stumbles into a room of mouse traps and slowly sets in motion a cascade of activity. I could see a wave rippling across the plaza as more and more of the assembled, munching multitude sensed something was up and started to rise to investigate. I half expected to see Christine go down and disappear in a sea of expectant, outstretched hands.

Luckily the teaching staff seemed well drilled and sprung into action to clear a path for the girls and generally beat back the crowd. We didn`t make the mistake of stopping again.

They have Chuppa Chups in Kyoto don’t they?

Ginger always expressed glee at the thought of boarding the shinkansen. It’s a super-fast railway system that relies on bullet shaped trains that power through obstacles like mountains by using tunnels. It’s also linked to major transport hubs like airports and suburban rail lines. Peta wasn’t so thrilled about the shinkansen. I’ll be frank: she hated any trains. It did not matter to her whether she we were catching the local subway system or the the little cantankorous train pulleys that made the rounds of the backyard urban fringes in Kyoto, or the bullet train, she hated it.

I handed over ticket duties to J—-. It was smile-inducing to watch him negotiate the intense ticketing and spidery rail maps. He got better and better at it, figuring out all sorts of crazy manoeuvres. This is J—-’ vignette about buying tickets in Osaka, having planned to go to Kyoto:

I’m down in the bowels of the earth, standing in front of an array of ticket machines and a subway map that is about 20 ft long.

Now the first time you use public transport in any new city is an exercise in logical deduction; you have to look at one map to figure out a color coding, then match that to another map to find the station name in your language/alphabet, then cross reference to some badly printed bit of paper sticky taped to a wall somewhere else to figure out the platform.

So I’m standing in front of one of the ten ticket machines and I’m doing pretty well – I’ve managed to tell it that I want a ticket (an obvious starting point but a bigger challenge than you might have thought), and I’ve told it there are two adults and that we want the subway. Christine, Ginger and Peta are off in the department store across the concourse handbag shopping because this is, of course, men’s work.

Then, as was bound to happen, I pressed some button that removed everything I’d done, changed the machine to some new mode and generally faffed things up. I stood there looking at the machine and tentatively pressed a few buttons. At this point the shiny steel plate to the right of the machine opens inwards and a man, slightly startled by my appearance, pops his head out and starts talking to me in Japanese. After a few rounds of broken Japanese, English and some charades he leans over and starts pressing the buttons on the machine for me. He even took the money out of my hands and feed it into machine from which he seemed to protrude. I thanked him as best I could, he nodded at me, pulled his head in and the flap closed.

Three tickets in hand and trying to suppress a giggle I wandered off to find the family.

The handbag window-shopping wasn’t all that enticing you know. I preferred scouting for bento boxes.
We slid into Kyoto one Friday morning in mid-October. The soft rain had already nudged its way into Osaka so we had a couple of umbrellas poised for action once we alighted form the bullet train. Ginger was given her own plastic red umbrella that she was determined to use at any opportunity. The Kyoto station building is big, black and bountiful; it’s full of department stores housed under one huge structural steel matrix-like canopy.

I refused to walk to our accomodation in the rain so we caught a taxi. I’m so glad we did as it’s not like catching a taxi anywhere else. The driver wore white gloves. One isn’t allowed to open and close the taxi passenger doors because it happens automatically. There are doilies spread on all the seats. Hello Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore! Ginger was also determined to ’scare’ anyone who she made eye contact with. As far as we could tell, that meant that meant laughing at people through the rear passenger window.

J—- had booked our accommodation months before. I had wanted to stay at a ryokan, a traditional inn, originally set up to accommodate travelling salesmen and merchants. The taxi took us to the old part of Kyoto and we were enchanted from the very beginning. Rikiya is a traditional wooden building right in the centre of the old imperial capital, and west of the Kodajii Temple with the large concrete Buddha that Peta and Ginger appropriated as their own for the following months. Peta repeated the word Buddha many times and Ginger claimed to see Buddha in cloud formations over and over.

When we entered the inn, the elderly proprietress was asleep under a pile of blankets in the reception area. She rose to greet us and immediately cooed over the children. All the rooms are Japanese style. In our case there was a large room laid with tatami mats and three futons, framed with post-and-beam construction; there were sliding timber framed screens that sectioned off a couple of small alcove spaces directly adjacent to the main space.

We sat on cushions at a low table and revelled in the cake and tea that was served at our arrival. Entry into the room was through a small ante-space that contained a washbasin, obviously separate to the sleeping room. Here, we were meant to leave our in-house slippers that replaced our shoes at the entry to the inn. One alcove space abutted the streetside fronatge. It was sunken at a lower level to the road so I could see people striding past. Here, was a shoji screen to a small garden space, carefully filtering the outside light, and a restful sofa where I made notes once the children fell asleep. Another unscreened alcove space, called a tokonoma, formed a raised platform that traditionally displayed art, scrolls and other precious objects.

At the ryokan we bathed together as a family in a fully white tiled bathroom. Instilling correct procedure into two excitable children wasn’t easy but we all felt a lot better after scrubbing and sluicing and rinsing ourselves after the day’s travel. On a walkabout earlier in the day, J—- discovered a basic organic restaurant. Here we met Fuko, the young son of the proprietors. He sat with us and his aunt told us that he thought Ginger was a doll. Ginger was turned away many times from the hot kitchen in her attempt to hug and chase him with excitement. The food was simple: brown rice, salmon with teriyaki sauce, organic wine cider in wine glasses, bread, pasta with vegetable gratin, spaghetti with vegetables.

After our meal we walk around cobbled alleys and underpasses and lanes with our mishmash of rainjackets and umbrellas, plastic, red and clear. The light rain and delicately detailed nightlights made a beautiful picture, far removed from the bright lights-big city pace of Osaka. The townhouses had beautiful stone bases with an array of bamboo screens, rattan, camphor and cedar timber walls, and soft planting. Small luminous fixtures poised directly on the stone lanes or fixed to entry areas carefully named houses and restaurants and shops, and gave some warm light to entrances. Sometimes it was difficult to tell apart a cosy bar from a private dwelling. We were hyper-aware of a more insular and precious inner life behind the gorgeous facades and made mental notes to come back and peek into these private gardens and entryways.

The next day, on his early morning walk, J—- bought some rolls for breakfast. We then walked through the Yasaka Temple and Maruyama Park. There is a weeping Cherry tree with majestic poise, a pond with carp and many ambling paths. We continued to walk uphill through crowded vendor streets, where Ginger rang a bell at a rice ball stand in order to make her purchase, and stared at geisha, real and fake. We continued up a tree lined pathway passing by small stone garden Buddhas to the hill-topped Kiyomizu Temple. The temple and its grounds are magnificent, full of terraced timber pavilions, sacred water streams and numerous wooden pillars. Brides in elaborate kimonos and tourists weave past one another. Ginger and Peta are photographed by men and women, mostly Chinese tourists. They are tired and it is difficult to keep them in check.

We lunch at a Chinese restaurant on a main busy street. Peta is unable to sit still at the low table we are seated at. She tries to lie in my arms. We return to the ryokan where Peta sleeps. Ginger declines but we know she wall fall in a crooked heap later when she sits int he tiny red stroller we have brought with us. J—- runs errands while I try to sleep with Ginger. Laundry needs to be washed. There are photos to be burnt onto a disc. The store owner eventually hand delivers the disc to our ryokan. Somehow he managed to find where we are staying.

I’m full of envy . J—- can exist as a separate entity for a couple of hours. Of course, I would panic a little at the prospect of negotiating all those tiny streets. I also want to be able to spend time alone with Ginger as I haven’t had many opportunities in the last 18 months. We do try to sneak moments throughout the trip. In Osaka, Ginger and I lunched at an uptight 1950s Salon du The at Daimaru. Crustless chicken sandwiches and iced lemon drinks are consumed with gusto. She milks it. Obviously her self imposed diet of plain white rice was not absolute according to her mood.

In the evening we take a taxi to commence the Philosopher’s walk in the north-east part of town, by a residential canal. It is a special contemplative walk going from Nanzenji, Honen-in, and Ginkakuji (Silver Pavilion) but the night cool air means we are the lone walkers. At the end we are confused at to where the train station is. A local resident walking his dog offers to take us. It is out of his way but he insists. He is a cardiologist who has visited Melbourne and offers some wonderfully obscure insight: Here is the temple where Scarlett Johanssen is filmed in Lost in Translation. It is the Nanzenjii temple which cannot be visited by us given we have walked during closing hours. I hand the kind man a Chuppa Chup for his daughter as we have nothing else to offer. I’m sure they have Chuppa Chups in Japan. Don’t they?

Octopus balls anyone?

We’ve been to the vinyl filled underground cavern that is Time Bomb records. In Osaka. In Japan. This is an obscure and roundabout way of announcing that we’ve been to places. In Japan.

Two wheelie suitcases, one Crumpler bag, one red beauty case, one small clip on bag, one 16 month old in soft backpack and one three-year-old scooting about in Dr Martens, one exhausted J—- and one fruitlooped Christine took the plunge in October-November 2007.

Our autumn holiday in Osaka saw us based in Dotonbori at Dotonbori Hotel. The hotel is in the middle of a myriad of bars, shopping districts, nightlife, restaurants and accessible subway. The street runs alongside of the Dotonbori canal. Osaka feels very familiar but there is nothing like it with the exception of Bladerunner. The night time neon and high rise luminous advertising are other-wordly, especially that viewed at Ebisu-bashi (bridge). It is extreme and sublime, perhaps ridiculous. I’ll go so far as to it’s the 21st Century equivalent to neo-Gothic. Imagine all that punked-up striation and discord by the likes of Butterfield and other architectural rogues. All those lights and rows and rows and rows and columns and columns of stripey signs that light up dark street as if it were post-apocolyptic day. My favourite advertising was a modernist pre-cast concrete building with the windows in one facade completely neoned up so that each window effectively showed a different coloured sport scene. The intensity of Osaka and its different districts also has the same countercultural pull as Melbourne, only huger. We love it.

On a lovely Tuesday afternoon we parked our bags at Hotel Dontonbori and walked south past the canal (or river, Dotonborigawa to you) to the shopping precinct, Shinsaibaishi. We were given instructions by B—- to visit Dotonbori Gozuraku Shoten-gai (Dotonbori Paradise Shopping Area). It’s a food theme park! It’s true. It’s located on the upper levels of the Naniwa-za theatre site.

We (meaning mostly me) ate Takoyaki which are doughy octopus balls. You generally buy six in a batch and they almost look like the hollow part of a donut with some sort of vinagerette flavouring. Except they have curious shreds dancing breezily on top. It turns out those ephemeral witchy shreds are fish flakes of which there are numerous tubs are available for sale in most inner city Japanese markets. I was particularly taken by the Japanese idea of wasting nothing of fishy critters. Seasoning anyone? Hell yeah, give me some fish flakes please. It’s all food. I also eyed off the Okonomiyaki (Japanese hotplate pancake) for future reference and choofed down perfectly formed glutinous riceballs stuck together with a skewer.

The girls barely noticed the food. Why would they, when water-game amusements and carny-type characters beckon? They also skedaddled all over the faux-medieval staircases and turrets and winding pathways that are meant to mimic old-world Osaka. I’m still not sure if it was meant to be a replica of Osaka in the 1950s or during the 1600s. Kooky. A lot of our toddler action was accompanied by the omnipresent chant of “Kawaii!”. This was the start of the Japanese mobbing of the M—- sisters. It was terrific. Ginger and Peta acted out their peculiar bumbling, slapstick repartee. Interpretative moves like falling and lolling about some outdoor furniture was given a huge cheer. The crowd lapped it up. Gift after gift after gift was offered by random strangers in all the cities and towns we visited: pine cones, bracelet charms, origami, crackers, mandarins.

In the early evening we peeked at America-Mura but dined in a restaurant back on the main strip in Dotonbori. We settled on a banquet of chicken giblets and hearts and skin, crumbed and grilled and skewered. We sat at a Western table with dining chairs; all the better for Peta to swing about and create bombastic chaos in the guise of 18-month old tired signs. I vowed we would sit Japanese style next time. Glasses thrown by small children have less impact when there is a shorter projectile distance involved.

There were two big surprises for me that night. J—- ate sushi. Peta slept for 12 hours straight. The moral of the story is that one will eat anything when hungry and one will sleep ‘like a baby’ when put through a grinding flight to Japan from Melbourne. It was worth it.

The Kaiyukun Aquarium near Osaka Bay made the hit list of our travel itenerary. It is a must-see, especially with children. They literally ran from one huge tank to another and the sights to behold are amazing: manta ray, whale shark, crabs, fishes, water plants. It’s endless and colourful and stupendously enagaging with the way it displays marine life from all around the world. Visitors start at the top and hug a ramp that winds down to the depths of the sea. The Pacific Ocean tank is mind-blowingly big.

We strayed into the outdoor boardwalk surrounds. A gaggle of school children mobbed a red stroller that housed a finger-sucking, ear-pulling Ginger. It was like a flight of locusts; but funnier. I pushed Ginger out of the mass of kids so that we could stroll into the nearby mall. Interesting. There’a cute little boutique that sells children’s wear, most o fit reminiscent of Batman and Robin Ka-pow! and Biff! cartoon graphics. I bought a bib that was eventually left behind. I should have bought more as it defintely was cheaper and more fun that a lot of the Euro designer gear spruiked at the big department stores.

The evening meal was glorious. J—– and I managed to ask our non-speaking bar hosts if we could occupy the rear dining cubicle: a room lined with timber boards and a built in table and banquette seats. The only adornment was a row of fat ties hanging from a rail. We started shyly but ventured into more extravagant dishes once the umeshu plum liquor was imbibed. It was a high ale glass mug full of carbonated alcoholic goodness. The staff that brought our food down from an upstairs kitchen managed to recommend various dishes in a halting English. In fact, there was very little English spoken on their part which made the whole experience more endearing. Who needs English when you have plum liquor doing the talking for you? The food was a revelation to me given that we were essentially eating in the back room of a bar: crispy soft shell crab sushi presented as if it were an extravagant dessert; crumbed pork and crustaceous cutlets; seaweed salads; lotus root and gorgeous sticky fried rice. I wish I could remember the restaurant’s name. It was diagonally opposite our hotel in Dotonborui. It had a ubiquitous luminaire as sign. It also made promises of English menus. I want to go again.

One time Ginger and I strolled along Mido-Suji Boulevard pretending we had stacks of dosh ready to blow on Burberry, Prada and Chanel. I also snuck away to department stores on the odd morning. Not for leather goods or French cardigans but for the basement level food departments. Heaven. Heaven. Have I made that clear? It’s a smorgasbond of the Japanese variety. Land of the Giants type fruit; one apple, the size of Peta’s head, encased in special fragile packing foam. Seafood crumbed and sitting gloating in beautifully arranged dining boxes. Endless permutations and combinations of sushi and sashimi in wonderful bento boxes. I also made these furtive expeditions in the evening just before closing time. My eyes nearly popped out of my head.

On a Thursday evening we made our way to Shinsekai (New World). This district was developed for the World fair in the 1960s. It conjures up a Coney Island aura with a mishmash of the surreal: a zoo that you literally wind through without entering, TV station tower, old-style street walkers and red light lanes, junk shops, animated stalls that specialise in hotly grilled octopus balls, and gaudy restaurants. The one recurring motif is fugu (puffer fish). We entered a restaurant only to be escorted across the road to another establishment. We still don’t know why they didn’t want our business. No matter. J—- and I toyed with our lives and ordered fugu sashimi. There was no tongue tingling on my part. There was also shredded eel skin. We sat cross legged at a low table while the girls sat comfortably on low chairs. Thjey impressed everyone. Peta simply tried everything and ate abundantly. They scored old-style face whistles. We walked through lit up streets as if it were the end of a theatre show. A neon cross burned up in the night sky.

An early morning walk in the rain took us to the market. This is what we saw: fermented vegetables and fish; shellfish and fish that were whole, live, filleted, salty, hanging, potted innards, fish flakes, and fish eggs and every other preparation one could imagine; sweets with flavours of green tea and plums; wild flowers; and rice. My favourite insight was the variation in available whitebait. Yummmo.

We also discovered Starbucks on this holiday. Ginger would eat the ham and cheese roll. I conceded given that she wouldn’t eat much else. J—- would begrudgingly have the coffee and I discovered some sort of white mocha chocolate pretend drink. I sat there on our last day in Osaka while waiting for J—- who was carrying Peta and pulling along our two suitcases. We were catching a train at Namba Station.

Next stop: Kyoto.