Well, That Was Quick!

Here I am, at Kansai International Airport outside of Osaka, usurping their bandwidth to send off another missive to the internet! Okay, let's see... Start with leaving JCMU. It was really sad leaving JCMU for what would be my last time as a stufent, well... kind of. I had already graduated, but hadn't exactly left. The whole last morning, I knew how alone I really was. The only people left there were faculty and Fumiaki. Fumi is one of the Japanese students learning English. He goes to Shiga Daigaku, so he gets to stay at JCMU. He has been in Tokyo, though. In any case, I finished up my last minute packing, and got everything ready. I went and printed out the necessary documents, made sure everything was confirmed, and then got ready to set out on my own into this country of Japan all alone. It is really the first time I had gone somewhere in this country alone, also. Pretty odd feeling, actually. Backpack and laptop case weighing on my shoulders, as they would for the next two and a half weeks, I walked out of JCMU with one final "Ittekimasu" caught in my throat. Nobody was there to respond with the standard "Itterasshai." For those who speak no Japanese, those are the set phrases used when one leaves a home on a daily basis. I crossed over to my Lawson's, and yes, it is mine, and got a final Melon de Melon, the delicious melon flavored sweet bread that Allan and I feasted upon regularly and a Dakara Life Partner, because the day was already hot, even at 10am. Just my luck, it was supposed to be about 88 degrees and very muggy. I sat and waited for the bus to come, and Fumiaki drove up to me, and we said our goodbyes, and he went on his way. Hopping on the bus, I sat and watched my little town of Hikone pass me by for one of the last times. Sure, I will be back to show dad and Kev around a bit, but it will be as a tourist. No more will I be a resident of Hikone, even for a short period of time. By he way, all of the bitterness of classes has passed by now, replaced by nostalgia, even before I was gone! I got off the bus a bit prematurely, as it rode through Ginza and walked my own way to the ATM to remove a bit of cash for the trip to Osaka. I wandered fairly slowly, even through Al Plaza to Hikone-eki. It was a very nice day, truth be told. Waiting for the train, I got out my PDA and started reading more of the Wheel of Time series. I had a stroke of genius (or just the boredom triggered something...) the night before and downloaded a PDF to TXT file converter and spent an hour saving 1170 pages of the book into 10 page files (that's 117 files out there for you math majors), so they would be small enough for my PDA to happily open. Now this thing is more than useful. Japanese dictionary, book, and if I ever get around to getting a good SD card, it will have a bunch of mp3s on it also. The train took me to Kyoto, and I barely read anything, so caught up in the countryside was I. I transferred to Osaka, and then got off at Osaka-eki and wandered around. I really had no idea where to go. So I decided to get something to eat. It was well after noon by this point. I found a little ramen place at the edge of Osaka-eki that had a Karaage Set lunch. Karaage is breaded, fried chunks of chicken breast. For about 780Y I got a dome of chahan (fried rice), three chunks of karaage, and a bowl of Shoyu Charshumen (Soy based Pork Ramen). Quite a deal! My belly more than full, I wandered outside to sweat some more. I mean, to find where I was going. I finally figured out where to go, taking one subway, taking a train, then transferring that train, and I got to my destination of Iharanosato out in BFE. That's right, in BFE. If you don't know what it means, look it up in The Urban Dictionary. Be warned, you can find anything there, and nothing is censored. Have fun! I was to stay the night at Lodge Tyojirou, and I had no idea where to find it other than "A 5 minute walk from Ihara station," so I started walking. And what do you know, five minutes later, and one sidestreet later, I was there! Lodge Tyojirou was actually a pretty pleasant, if a little dark, youth hostel type place. They had a bunch of pictures of previous guests who had stayed there, and all dressed up as samurai or in kimono.. It was pretty cool. The owners seemed truly happy to have me there. Now, to the room. It had bunk beds with a folding cot also in the room. Every room looked like it could have 3-4 crammed into it. I was blissfully alone in mine, and since it was so hot, I took advantage of that. You may draw your own conclusions. When I got tired of that, I took a little walk, and didn't find that much other than a Friendly's, which had a drink bar (free refills!!!) so I planned to go back for dinner, though it was about 5pm. I wasn't hungry. I actually passed out in my room for a while after reading a bit, and woke up at around 9pm. Now it was dinner time. I meandered my way over to the Friendly's, and got myself the drink bar and some Teppanyaki Steak (a steak griddle with thinly sliced steak which was absolutely delicious, a few fries, cabbage, onions, and, surprisingly, carrots). The drink bar was pepsi products, so I wasn't holding out for melon soda. Luckily, I was surprised when in their selection of Pepsi, CC Lemon, Grapefruit Soda, and White Water (which was a lemon-lime like cider drink), they had Suntory Melon Soda! I promptly poured myself three glasses (about 12 ounces each) and went to my seat to read while I waited. I hung out there until about 30min before the curfew (curfew of the hostel was 11pm), adding a much-missed cappucino to the list of beverages drank, and then sauntered home, my belly full of beef and melon soda with a hint of cappucino, and read myself to sleep. I didn't fall asleep until 1:30am this time, though. I did make it home in time to get a shower in, and you have no idea how good that felt. This morning, I left Lodge Tyojirou and hit Osaka on my own. I went back to the Namba-eki with the intention of transferring and going to Sony Tower, but I saw something called Namba Parks. I had seen it in a magazine the day before, and decided to check it out. It was a beautiful shopping area, with really unique architechture. The first thing that caught my eye was a series of gardened terraces that had water features running through all of them. If the Hanging Gardens of Babylon existed in Japan on the edge of a mall, this would be them. It wasn't awe-inspiring, but pretty amazing that they could have that many gardens in the middle of a city on an 8 story buidling. When I got up to the top, I went and looked down from my lofty perch. This is where the architechture astounded me. It was designed to look like a canyon, windswept and wavy walls made with variegated layers of earth tones running from pale sandstone to a dark burnt sienna, it caught the eye, and dragged it to the floor of the mall which had designs of swirling blue, obviously meant to be a stream. It was even called Canyon Road. Well done, Japanese architect. Well done. I wandered around there and found an ad at the three story Sports Authority (three stories?!) that said "Impossible is Nothing!" I thought dyslexia have advertisers? The food there was too expensive to eat, and after wandering aroud practically every store in an 8 story mall, carrying laptop case and backpack, I was pretty hungry. I had eaten nothing else that day except for a delicious almond-encrusted belgian waffle made in front of me (and it was still warm....) that morning. So I looked at the restaurants, and everything ranged at least 1200Y, so I passed on that. I wouldn't even get a drink bar there, so what was the point? I headed out of the Namba Park to the city below. I bought a Dragon Ash CD, Mustang (yes, Jamie, you can have a copy, since you let me copy yours) at Book Off, and got a free 50Y off coupon by winning a slot game outside. After I bought the CD. So I had to go back and visit the 105Y manga shelves, ending up picking a Slayer's manga. By this time, it was 4:30, and my dad and Kevin arrived at 6, so I decided to go wait at the airport. My dad's email said he would meet me at the bar closest to the gate, but he doesn't understand Japanese airports; they don't have little Cheer's pubs dotting the gates. They serve draft beer at the magazine stand though.. But there are only two Arrival gates. North and South. I think I'll be able to find him. It is now 6, and his plane was delayed. I bet it was his fault too, hehe. Luckily there is free internet available to me (and a place to charge my PDA, more reading time for me!) The most interesting thing about Kansai International Airport is not the fact that it is on an island that was built specifically to house the airport, but that I was wandering around and found a Lawson's in the basement below the arrival gates. It is down about 1.5 stories, so it is the lowest Lawson's I have ever seen. It was decidedly lacking in their Melon de Melon, however, so I just got a big carton of green tea. In the last hour I will wait for my dad and Kevin, perhaps pull my Dragon Ash on to my mp3 player. That would make me happy. In any case, this is David, signing off, from Kansai International Airport!