Day Eight began quite early for Woo and I. Being as we got home from Nap at 4:30am, the fact that we were awake, packed up, and checked out of the hotel by 10am was very surprising. We were meeting Dennis and Michael at the Kyoto International Manga Museum at 10am, so we were late, but not as late as expected.
We were up and out of bed, but I was still so busted ass I fell up the stairs coming out of the subway station. Not as bad as Woo's massive stack down some stairs the night before while drunk out of his gord, but a stack nonetheless. While I'm talking about stacks, Dennis also had a doozy. Last night was raining and the pavements are quite slippery, so I was running along the pavement, and sliding along (on my feet of course) for a few metres before coming to a stop. I'd been doing it between a few bars when we were on the slippery pavement and was finding myself rather amusing (and awesome). Dennis decided not to let me have all the fun after we came out of some boring pub and had a giant failure. He found out that pavement defeats hips and ass every time. Funny shit, but I saved him the embarrassment of taking a photo of him while he was on his ass. Woo didn't get the same treatment, hence I have a photo of him, lying on his back in a stairwell.
Anyway, so the Manga museum would have been awesmome if any of the maga was in english, or if I wasn't hungover like a mule. I just didn't have the brain power fot it, but at a different time it might have been good. It's really more like a library, as people we coming in, sitting on couches and just grabbing one of the millions of different manga books and having a read.
After that we grabbed some food and decided that while in Kyoto we needed to see at least one temple. We went to the Golden temple, which was (gold) very pretty and had a lovely garden around it. Then to the one with the big rock garden, but the rock garden was not as big as I had been led to believe. Both were good, but so touristy and commercialised, that it definitely took away from the peacefulness of the place.
On the bus when we came back to central Kyoto from the temples, I thought I was being very prepared with my coin at the ready to pay my 220yen fare. I only had a 500yen coin, but in all the other machines, this is no problem. Unfortunately, the machine on the bus only gives change in 10yen coins. And it's slow. And you pay when you get off. And as the driver operates the machine manually, he cant go anywhere until its done. So a packed bus got to sit there and hear Woo, Dennis and Michael laughing themselves silly and the "tink, tink, tink..." as twenty eight 10yen coins came out of the machine. Maybe 1 coin every 3 seconds, however it felt like an hour. With every subsequent "tink", Woo, Michael and Dennis would erupt into laughter again. I'm sorry Japanese commuters. I tried.
We then jumped on the Shinkansen and took the 14 minuted train trip to Osaka. Osaka and Kyoto are basically the same city. Like Joondalup and Perth, there is no area btween them which isn't built up. It's dense housing the whole way.
Osaka train station with suitcases and so forth at 5pm on a Saturday night is not fun. Well, it is a little bit fun, but it's a lot nuts. Fucking great big piles of nuts. I could tell I was gonna like this place, and after checking in at our hotel and cleaning up, we would be ready to do it all over again. This time, Osaka style.
Dennis and Michael got to our hotel at 8pm, and after it was Me and Woo that had dragged them down to Osaka, we felt a little pressure to make sure they had a good night. Dennis didn't seem the most excited to be here, but Michael seemed pretty pumped as we headed out to grab some food in Osaka.
We started out into the night by bumbling our way through grabbing a ticket for the subway. Hardly any signage in Osaka is in English, so it's a little more difficult than Tokyo or Osaka. Jon (the dude who busted my nose) had hooked us up with a friend of his named Keith, who told us to go out in an area known as Nagahori-bashi. After getting my subway ticket, I turned around to find Woo talking to a bunch of mid-twenties Japanese dudes. They were very friendly, and asked us where we were heading out tonight, and told us where the were going. It was a very amusing, broken english converstaion. One that would be unlikely to happen in Tokyo.
We got off the station and walked to the area we were supposed to be going, we then walked around a bit till we found some Japnese writing, with the word "bar" in English. We all strolled in and the current customers looked as if I had just taken a dump on their chest. The Gaijin had broken their lovely evening, even though we were being very quiet and respectful. I actually think we were moire uncomfortable being there than they where having us there. It was a sake bar, and in hindsight, maybe a restaurant too. We each got one drink each, and they brought us out this tofu dish which was quite nice, however we did not order it. We then asked for the check, which was 6100yen (thats about $120).
We then managed get hold of Keith, and we met him outside a department store. He's from Edinburgh, and has lived in Osaka for the last 3 years.
Keith took us to a bar, I cant remember the name of it, but it had written on the blackboard out the front "a tribute to the word fucking". Oh - kay. We had a few drinks there, spoke to a few ex-pats and a few locals. Osaka people are definitely more alternative than those from Tokyo or Kyoto. More black clothing, less heels, way more tattoos and a more friendly and open personality.
Keith then took us to another bar that we would never have found on our own. We walked in and it had all bondage and porn stuff on the screens. Like "artsy" porn, just still images, no nasty close ups or anything. The bar was tiny. Maybe two metres by 8 metres. All the seats were at th bar, and they were all taken when we got there, so we were pretty much just standing against the back wall, although only a metre back from the bar.
Keith says he needs a volunteer, I figured we would be drinking something new and evil, so I pipe up. He then hands me a microphone as Oasis's Wonderwall comes on. We were in the most random Karaoke bar I'd ever seen. I sung Wonderwall incredibly poorly, and then all others got on the bandwagon. Seeing this Japanese dude belt out AD/DC's Highway to Hell was one of the funier moments of my trip. Michael did more than words, which reminded me of Belle, as that is one of her all time favourite Karaoke songs. Dennis had certainly perked up by the time he busted out some NWA old school for the locals. Me and Woo cranked out Eye of the Tiger later on in the evening after eveybody else had sung.
We then headed off to another bar, after me and Michael had a wrestle in the hallway outside the Karaoke. No blood noses this time, which was a pleasant change. The bar we got to was packed to the rafters but we managed to get a seat in the corner of the bar. The bar girls were wearing shirts that said "I made you all wet but my martini is still dry". One of them had an absolutely dynamite tattoo that went around her lower back and down her pelvis. Hot. Blow my mind hot.
We managed to get hooked up with this group of white girls from Melbourne. We all went to the next bar together, this was the bar Woo walked into and immediately bought a round for the entire bar. Probably about 10 people. He was wondering how he managed to drop 30000yen last night until he remembered that moment.
We ditched the white girls at about 4am and Keith took us to a club. Earlier in the night, Keith had told us to be aware of th south american contingent, and if they do anything, just say "sumimasen" and move away.
Keith left us at the entrance to the club and went home. We all went in and the place was jumping. I found a spot in a corner and sat down for a bit, after about 5 minutes I was ready to keep kicking on, bur Dennis and Michael had somehow got the impression that the club was full of south americans and wanted to leave. I dont remember any, but to be honest, I dont remember much.
We got home after Woo had stopped at a convenience store and bought noodle cups and chip etc. Woo passed out not too long after Dennis met Buddha's friend, Chunder in the bathroom. Michael and I did our best to irritate Woo as he was trying to remain passed out on his bed. It was the third night in a row he had passed out before even getting under his covers.
I woke up thee hours later. Michael had gone. I must've passed out in mid-conversation. Poor Michael. Dennis was still passed out in the bathroom, but he woke up and headed back to hit hotel, before they would get back on the shinkansen and return to Tokyo.
Like I said before, Osaka is nuts. Great big, awesome, crazy Japanese nuts.
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