First Day in Osaka
I woke up early to head to Osaka, I think I was up at 6am, showered, packed my stuff and chatted with these 3 young dudes from Maryland who were also headed to Osaka. I told them I was going too and we all took the train together. They ended up heading to Round 1 arcade and I went to drop my bags off at my hotel but didn’t feel like catching the train to Iga that day. I have an embarrassing story about that in tomorrow’s post.
So after landing in Osaka, I put my stuff at the hotel and check in isn’t until 3pm so I run around Dotonburi. It’s crazy. Shoulder to shoulder, so many video cameras and people taking pictures, and just like… Tourist central. It was cool to walk through but yeah I’m not particularly interested in wading through people my entire vacation. So I go back to the hotel, check in, and put my stuff down.
My friend Sam texted me, saying that he was in Osaka at Round 1 playing Chunithm, which I am now addicted to, and I was like ok sick, let’s hang in a bit, I’m kinda tired. So I passed out on the bed for like an hour, got up and left to meet him. He was ready to leave when I got there so I was like “ok well I wanna play some stuff” and so he got me into Maimai, which is the rhythm game that looks like a washing machine. It’s dope. I do need to buy a set of driving gloves at the conbini to be able to adequately play the game. I don’t know if that’s worth it, considering the time I have left.
Sam is based AF
So I met this dude Sam, the one I went to the cat cafe with, and he’s been awesome to hang out with. He and I have been playing rhythm games a lot in the arcade and it’s great lol. He’s been to Japan 3 times(?) and his Japanese is pretty good. Mine is absolute dog water, but the Japanese people say I explain things in a way that’s easy to understand. That’s nice of them.
So anyway, Sam is an absolute legend and he sent me a video of the Neko Matsuri mascot walking around near the Shrine. I had really wanted to see the mascot and had been looking forward to it for the past month. I told him I was jealous lol.
Without telling me until later, he bought me a Neko Matsuri specific prayer amulet! I’m going to cherish it forever. It’s so cool man. He’s been awesome to hang out with and he said the feeling is mutual. I’ll definitely keep in touch with him about future trips to Japan. I wish I had bought him something. Well I know he reads the blog now so Sam, send me your address and I’ll make you a thing and send it. 🙂
First Night in Osaka
So the bartender in Kyoto that I had been talking to, who was cool af, told me about this bar in Osaka called Bar Fader. He said they do live DJ and there’s an insane sound system. I was excited so I went over there and it turned out to be dope. The reason he knew about it was his friend who DJ’d the Chiptune event I randomly went to the other day at Cafe La Siesta was the bartender at Bar Fader. So when Sam and I showed up I was like, “Hey I saw your set on Friday and the Bartender at Cafe La Siesta told me to check out this place!” And he was like “Honto?! Maji de?!” (Really? Seriously?) So we spoke for a bit and I talked to people at the bar and we chatted about how Iron Maiden was coming to Osaka the next day and then how my friend I brought there had tickets. It was actually an awesome experience. I had a blast, as usual.
There was this woman named Aki who came up to me and said she confused me with her friend and I was like “lolwut”. She was hanging all over me. It was kinda nice ngl… I don’t get that often. She was cute. Her boyfriend was watching this and I don’t know if it’s like an NTR thing or something but it was kinda crazy.
Anyway, Great time, and they joked that Sam and I are “soulmates” because “netto ni aimashita” (we met online), I thought it was really funny. I actually really love that there’s this weird disconnect between the internet I’m used to and the internet the rest of the world uses. Like, “Internet cafes” still exist and are going strong. The whole culture here is incredible.
After that, I called it a night. Pretty early by my standards lol.
