Osaka - Day 3, maybe 4

Osaka seems determined to make itself nothing but a blur. Or, I seem determined to make Osaka nothing but a blur. Regardless, it is officially 6:58am in this amazing but deadly city. Osaka, for me, holds one esteem above all others; my most embarrassing Japanese stuff-up to date.

But, I get ahead of myself.

Kyoto Day 2 was quite exceptional. Despite the pain it caused me to do so, I hopped on my bike and rode around the city from site to site. Personally, I found the tourist attractions in Kyoto to be rather "eh...", but they were beautiful and amazing nonetheless. However, I felt the need for something a bit more substational than temples and castles. As a result, I headed out on my bike for a 10km ride up the eastern side of Osaka, enjoying the beautiful scenery and falling Sakura flowers as I went along. Before I knew it, I had ridden from the middle part of Osaka to it's northern most point, where the city met an impassable mountain range. I proceeded to ride back for about 15km, since I managed to get lost along the way and ended up further west than I ever needed to be. It was an incredibly enjoyable ride though. After returning my bike, I headed back to my hotel where I enjoyed a few (rather expensive) Grasshoppers before heading to bed rather early.

Although it lacked anythign specifically interesting to me, Kyoto is nonetheless an extremely beautiful city, especially in spring, and I highly recommend it. However, if you do go, I think a bike is the best way to get around. Kyoto is unique to Japan in that it's major attractions are not necessarily close to major train stations. Whether you are like me and not terribly intersted in temples and castles, or if that really is your thing, you'll find Kyoto by bike to be an incredible (and convenient) experience.

After waking up bright and or early in Kyoto, I headed back for the short trip to Osaka by bullet train, which takes only about 15 minutes all up. Barely enough time to get comfortable. I checked in to my hotel, and, believe it or not, tried to find a place where I could rent another bicycle using directions provided by the hotel. The directions where however quite useless, so I ended up on foot for the afternoon.

My friend James joined me about about 3pm, helped me to find a bank to exchange some travellers cheques, and then I went with him to do some shopping, which seems to be 50% of what you can do in Osaka (the other 50% is eat and drink). I was happy to know that my hotel had a laudry room and I briefly washed my clothes (since Hakuba I had been washing them with soap and a bathtub) and stepped out with James for a night of dinner and drinking.

It was the drinking part where everything went kind of wrong. I hadn't really had too much, but I had more than enough to be at a point where my abilities with the language were far out the window. By 9, we were back at our 'local' where we enjoyed the always friendly service and some darts. Everyone seemed happy to see us return, for which I was glad.

Now, I need to go into a little bit of detail here. It's not uncommon, even in English, when a good mate says wrong against you in a casual way, that you might want to say 'Hey, are you looking for a fight?'. James said wrong agaist me. I wanted to ask him this very question. Explaining this properly seems beyond me now at 7am, however.

You see, the word for 'fight' (kenka) and 'marry' (keikon) are all too similar (to me) in Japanese, and 'fight' is a word I've only learnt on my holiday. After James' slightly offensive remark of some kind, I wanted to say to him 'Do you want to fight me?', which would have been slightly funny in the situation. But I actually asked him 'Do you want to marry me?', in the loudest voice I could manage.

Needless to say, the whole bar heard me. I spent the remainder of the night trying to assure everyone present that I was, in fact, not gay. Even after spending the whole night there, I'm still not sure that they all believe me after my sudden marriage proposal. It's a great place, but I doubt anyone there will ever treat me with respect again.

I am, however, getting pretty good at darts. :)