The area around the Osaka Aquarium is called Tempozan, supposedly after the Japan’s smallest mountain. My companion had heard about it on the internet. Curious to see what a “smallest mountain” was, my friend and I searched the area carefully until we found a small park with a mound labeled “Tempozan” in Japanese. It was just a hill. I still can find no explanation for why anyone has ever justified calling this a “mountain” instead of a “hill.” It would have been more impressive if it had been much higher or much smaller. I was expecting something the size of a building or a cute little mound that came about waist high.

After the “mountain” the other girl decided to go home and shelter from the heat. I had to find something else to do. When I had arrived in Osaka the day before with few ideas, I went to the tourist office in Shin Osaka station first. I saw a flyer for unlimited subway and bus riding for either 1 (¥2,000/$17.22) or 2 (¥2,700/$23.25) days. The pass allowed free or discounted passes to many of Osaka’s finest attractions. Obviously, the 2-day pass is a better deal. But there were two major differences between the two passes. The 2-day pass did not cover all of the subway lines and it was only available to tourists, not residents like me. So I got the 1-day pass. Once I discovered that an all day subway ticket cost less than ¥900, I realized I had been ripped off. Especially since I didn’t intend to hit many of the tourist attractions listed. There was a discount coupon for the aquarium, which was nice, but I wasn’t interested in most of the places. There are only so many amazing high places (various Ferris wheels/tourist trap towers) that one can see and still be impressed. Both the Buddhist temple are almost completely reconstructions. There are very few Japanese castles remaining in their original composition. Japanese castles are very flammable. When it was built in 1598, the castle in Osaka had been touted as impregnable. Not too long later, an angry horde stormed and destroyed it. The Osaka castle was rebuilt. Lightning burned a large chunk of it in 1665. More aggressive hordes came by and destroyed it again in 1868. The main tower was rebuilt in 1928 and bombed in 1945. In 1995, the Japanese had decided that Osaka needed another tourist trap and recreated the entire castle. I had already been to one Japanese castle that was fitted with air conditioning, elevators, and cheesy reenactment films. I didn’t need to do that again.

Although I was cheated, I was determined to at least get my money’s worth out of that damn day pass. There was a free pass for the Santa Maria Bay cruise, a ¥1,500 deal. I do like water views and even though I get seasick, a boat is the best place to get a water view. My internet acquaintance and I parted after 3pm.The bay cruise left every hour so I wandered around until 4pm.At 4:00, I boarded the Santa Maria. The staff were dressed like pirates. The greeter was a man in one of those costumes with those giant fake heads where you look out of the mouth. He looks suspiciously like Captainn Jack Sparrow except for the copyright infringement saving grace of an eye-patch. Not exactly charming, I had watched a delightful exchange between this character and a small Japanese boy in a man’s arms. The man was gleefully holding his child up to the bigheaded pirate and laughing. Capt’n Jack Eyepatch was waving silently like those anonymous costumed people have to do. The toddler was wailing and failing, hysterically, trying to ward off the frightful scoundrel with screams of “BYE BYE!”

The Santa Maria is a gas powered vessel dressed with fake sails and rigging. I took a seat on a bench near the bow to get maximum exposure to nausea-soothing winds. I heard gasps and giggles and turned around to see a pirate costumed man pretend to fall and dangle easily off the nets. I don’t know what talking like a pirate sounds like in Japanese, but I suppose our new (normal headed) captain was doing it as the Santa Maria put-put-puttered out into the bay.

All industrial ports are ugly, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but this was certainly the unsightliest coastline I have ever seen. Dreary warehouses. Piles and piles of scrap metal ready to be melted down. Then and again broken by the fantastical Osaka tourist industry. The glass tiered aquarium. The shiny alien Festival Gate. Universal Studios, Japan. Something was announced in Japan pirate-ese and most of the passengers went to the center of the boat to watch a slapstick acrobatic show. I stayed on the bow, gazing at the ugly going by.

*

I knew I had to see Dotombori and Ebisu bridge. The more Tokyo than Tokyo. The bright and futuristic neon Japan as (I have not) seen in Bladerunner.

I went to the Namba station and got lost in an underground mall. I emerged on a street with a moving pet kennel made of cardboard boxes. There were five cats (including a kitten) and one dog tied up to the cart. It is not unusual for homeless people to adopt cats. I supposed this is fitting when a large number of cats in Japan are also homeless. But most of these adopted street cats are well cared for. The adopted Tokyo cats are sleek and too cool for you. You can pet them, but they won’t care. I had met my first friendly cat in Japan at Shin Osaka station. It was lying under a tree to escape the awful heat, dozing. Merr… merr… it croaked when I woke it up, but not in a sickly way. It lazily got up and rubbed against my legs. I bent down to pet it. It sat on my feet in appreciation. I was happy to feel it was well fed and had healthy fur. I didn’t get a close look but I think it was even neutered. I saw a second cat with it a few hours later. This one seemed a little shier but equally well cared for.

But this cart of cats downtown was another story. Like all of the other cats I’ve seen in public places, these had collars but their owner was nowhere to be found. They were all tied to the cart with ropes. Out of all the animals, the dog looked the healthiest, even with its tongue out, panting in a disturbing resigned sort of way. It wouldn’t open its eyes at anyone that passed. One cat was hiding under the cart with only it’s rear and tail sticking out. Two adult cats were passed out on a raised cobblestone area behind the cart. And there was a poor little black kitten. It’s stomach was big like a baby’s should be, but it didn’t quite look like fat, maybe bloating. Its fur was matted and discolored, its eyes gummy. These three cats were breathing quickly and not moving. The heat was unbearable. Oddly enough, the only active cat was the oldest and mostly sickly looking. It sad up straight on the tower of boxes and washed itself occasionally, watching the people going by. It was so thin its pelvis was just a box framed by bones. It was leaking diarrhea. Maybe because it was so hopelessly skinny and its hair so thin, it could bear the boiling humidity and preoccupied humility marching by. There was a metal bowl with a thin layer of tepid dusty water. I bought a bottle of water from a vending machine, threw out the old crud and filled the bowl with cold fresh water. The cats stirred a little but barely noticed. The kitten opened its diseased eyes with some curiosity but didn’t want to play, didn’t want a pet. None of them got up to drink the water, though I knew they desperately needed it to tone down their body temperature. With cats it’s nearly impossible to point out “Look, stupid. Your food is HERE. Your water is HERE.” You either have to wait for them to find it, or push their faces in it, but I didn’t have the heart for that.

Since I didn’t exit Namba station immediately, but wandered underground instead, I wasn’t sure where I was on the map. I asked some girls handing out flyers how to orient myself to the river. They had no idea what I was saying. I know very little Japanese but “Where is Dotombori river? The river, where is it?” is something I can actually say. My pronunciation is horrible of course, but in Osaka they have a particular dialect. I’m going to save my confidence and blame my inability to be understood in Japanese on that. Actually, the people in Osaka speak English more widely than anywhere else, I’ve been, including Tokyo. Any attempts at Japanese elicited a confused horror and the demand “English, please!”

Where is Dotombori?

There are two common American foods I have been craving since I got to Japan. My pizza desires have been satisfied a place called Martown in Maebashi, the best (meaning adequate) pizza I’ve had in Japan. I had not yet found a burrito. But wandering down Dotembori, I stumbled upon a Mexican restaurant between the stunning and sleazy love hotels. I sat down and grinning so hard my face almost ripped when the menu promised vegetarian and vegan burritos. Then I nearly dropped the menu when I heard Spanish. Spanish, Spanish. Where did it come from? Not from behind the bar, the young man and woman were Japanese and confused. A middle-aged man next to me introduced himself. He was from Spain on a business trip in Japan. He asked me if I spoke Spanish. I said I did. He said something in Spanish. Then he said (in English) that lots of people say they speak Spanish, but very few actually did. I was about to protest that I did know Spanish and I had understood everything he had said and would understand a fair amount of anything he would say, but then he asked me to name a neighbor of Spain. France, I said. He said that was impressive because most people in Japan and America usually think it’s somewhere in South America. I could tell he wanted to talk, not have a conversation. I ordered a burrito, and also a margarita. He said he wanted to travel to one of the South American countries for something. I told him I wanted to go to Argentina for tango. “Oh! Come here,” he crooned. He got up and straightened his posture with his arms in correct form. I laughed and sipped my margarita instead. He sat back down and told me that there are two places in the world he would never go. Tokyo, because he was in a high-rise hotel when there was a (minor) earthquake. Everything was shaking around. It was too startling. And Iceland, because he had once been imprisoned for two days there for no reason. He told me he was going back to his hotel for a rest but he would love it if I would drink with him at 9 in this Mexican restaurant. I told him I had to be back at my hostel by then. He said if I didn’t stay, it was fine, but he would be back here at 9 and would love for me to join him. He took my hand and kissed it. After he left, I paid for my mediocre but somehow placating burrito and margarita and wandered towards Amerika-mura.

Amerika-mura is supposed to be replica of some unidentifiable essence of America. I couldn’t think of any part of America it reminded me of. I guess the edges with their large designer stores were like the streets of New York or the malls of LA, but to me it was all Japan. Amerika-mura is most often compared with Harajuku in Tokyo. The center is filled with small, flamboyantly stylish stores. The clothes in El Rodeo were adorable but a little too expensive for me. But they were all designed by the staff. I was in love with the one-of-a-kind, hand painted (I think), yukatas. At a second hand store called Peee ka Booo!, I bought a knee length shiny, frilly tiered skirt.. The store above it sold equipment for indoor plant growing. It was closed. The poster outside showed an elaborate light set up growing basil. Yeah. I’m sure the kids of Amerika-mura are big fans of basil.

In Amerika-mura teens come dressed in their best to impress. I like the style of Osaka better than Tokyo. In Tokyo, it’s either classy and expensive or trashy and still expensive. The youth of Osaka appear more laid back, but just as put together. They’re more colorful. Less prissy than the Tokyo upperclass but more sophisticated than the Tokyo trash. There’s fashion competition in Amerika-mura just as there is in Harajuku, but feels more like a social challenge and less like tribal warfare.

Ebisu Bridge did not fail to deliver. Giant walls of neon going down the river.

There was a bar in my Lonely Planet Guide called Soul Fuck Try. I had an hour to kill before I had to head back to the hostel, if I could get there quickly enough. I decided to ask for directions rather than risk trying to find it on my own. But one thing I never seem to learn is that asking the Japanese for directions is a bigger gamble. If they know where it is, congrats, you win! If they don’t… In America, if you ask for directions and someone isn’t sure where it is, they’ll either wave you along or they’ll preface their instructions with “I’m not sure, but I think…” The Japanese are usually so friendly and so eager to help that they will smile and point you in some direction, even if they have no idea. My success rate with asking directions in Japan is just barely over random chance. After a few months I learned a measure of self-preservation. If their expression falters even slightly, I excuse myself and dash away. I didn’t expect anyone to know where Soul Fuck Try was, but I could see on the lousy, land-mark bare Lonely Planet Guide that it wasn’t too far away from Amerika-mura.

I asked a young woman to verify my way back to Amerika-mura. With perfect confidence, she said she would take me there. Ten minutes later, we had gone in a circle. She found it on the second try. As we were approaching Amerika-mura she asked where I was going. I told her I was going to Soul Fuck Try. She didn’t understand me. I showed her the listing in Lonely Planet and she sounded out the katakana “Soul Factory?” Sure, I said. She took the map from me and told me she thought it was just over there. Now I was totally screwed. I followed her politely for 40 minutes. Every time I tried to look at the map myself she kept saying that it was just a little farther.

Finally she stopped a very elegant looking older woman, probably in her late 40s and asked if she knew how to get to Soul Factory. No way. If there’s something worse than a Japanese person giving you bad directions, it’s two Japanese people giving you bad directions. I’d end up in Kyoto before I found the bar. I looked down at the ground. The older woman had narrow feet in tan healed sandals with beads. Her toes were all slanted outwards. The elegant woman said she had just had her hair done at a place down the street, she would ask them. Now we were going to involve more boggled Japanese people in this mad hunt? If I were at bar right then, I’d only have 20 minutes to enjoy myself. Unlike the younger girl, the new woman spoke English. I had had the bad luck to not only find a person who had no idea where she was going but also the only young person in Osaka not to know any English. The language barrier was another reason why I hadn’t just thanked the girl and went alone. I didn’t know how to ask for my map back without being hurtfully rude. (Map! Please!) There was no way completely save that girl’s confidence, but I explained that I needed to get back to the subway because my hostel had a curfew. The older woman said she would take me to the station. I figured I could trust someone to find a train station she uses regularly and reluctantly followed the woman back. She turned out to be a lot more competent that the earlier girl.

I sadly cannot say I went to a bar called Soul Fuck Try. But I got fucked over trying.