The overnight bus ride from Fukuoka to Osaka was as respectable as overnight bus rides go. The Willard Express bus we were on had seats that reclined far enough to be comfortable for a dwarf to sleep; there was also a leg rest that came up. It was basically comparable to business class on old school airplanes before they brought in the lie flat beds. The bus made one or two stops at truck stops on the highway. I woke up for one of them just to see what a Japanese truck stop is like, and you can check it in the pictures below. To sum it up: an endless array of coffee drinks.

We arrived in Osaka at 7:30am, way too early to check into our hotel there or do anything really except cataloguing salarymen passed out in their own vomit on the sidewalks. As lovely as that sounds, a nap was in order, so it was time to check out how Japan’s love hotels took on Korea’s. The great thing about these places is they are available for short periods of time, and during the day they are discounted, perfect for a snooze to catch up on the less than stellar sleep on the bus. The hotel we tried was 100% automated. You didn’t have to interact with a single human being to select your room, check in, check out, or pay. Actually it was a little creepy, because the door to the room locks and won’t unlock until you pay. I could only imagine some HAL type antics going on in there. Hell I bet some freaks would be into that. Still it had everything you need for a good rest…or other activities.

After the nap we decided to grab lunch then be dumb tourists for a bit. Osaka is fucking huge. You’d never think it but it the region has a population of something like 19 million, which is the same size as Beijing. Near the train station was a building called the Umeda Sky Building. This one had yet another observatory in it, so we figured what the hell, lets head on over and check her out. Observation decks are precious for us lazy folk, you need not walk more than a couple hundred feet to see the entire city. While we were up there killing time, on a map there was an off the path destination that immediately caught my eye: the Osaka Sewage Museum. In my mind I pictured the most amazingly over-engineered toilet systems on display, this being Japan and all, and I knew that I had to try one for myself. Foolishly we bought train tickets from a ticket agent instead of the official counter, and the idiot there sold us tickets to a train station on a different line, on the other side of town. We figured this out once we had arrived on the other side of town. With the day now wasted, as we would have to head back during rush hour, I made it my petty mission to relocate the agent and return the tickets despite the fact they cost less than a bottle of water (although they would incur future costs of alcohol to lower my stress levels at this point). When we got back, they refused to refund them because they had already been used, but I refused their refusal, and so began a 15 minute silent standoff. Eventually they blinked, and we got our 300 yen and went on our merry way.

After returning to the hotel for refreshment, we were starving and thirsty, and walking along the road to the Shin-Osaka station we located the most awesome izakaya of the trip so far. I was attracted to a sign for 220 yen beers, which is cheap as rice in this country, and through some dirty windows, I could see a few people inside. So we slid open the doors and made our presence known. The place was actually pretty big and full of salarymen who were well on their way to drunktown. As for deco it was probably decorated by one of said salarymen sometime in 1983, and hadn’t been changed since. Another plus, they had an English menu, and the food on it we tried was delicious. It was here that I developed a newfound appreciation for Japanese beer. Now don’t get me wrong, the Japanese beer is still mostly horrible. It’s better than the piss served in China, but it’s still wastewater at best. However, this particular bar served the beer so damn cold, there were ice formations in my glass, there was also a nice layer of creamy head and after the long day, it was like a chorus of angels tap dancing in my mouth.

We decided not to fill up there, and instead went down to the Shinsaibashi/Dotonbori area to check out the scene. This part of town is an endless grid of restaurants, bars, and Filipino hookers. We found one izakaya overlooking the river that was awesome not just because everything was only 300 yen but also because you made all your orders via a touch screen computer on the table. No English, but the pictures and Chinese characters were good enough for us to figure out what we wanted. They need this gadgetry in China so bad. No more “we don’t have that today” for half the things on offer, no more fucked up menus because of inflation related price changes, and no more yelling “FUWUYUAN!!!” from everyone in the damn restaurant for every damn little thing they need.

After our top up on food and a little bit of shochu, it was time for a quick stroll before heading home. The quick stroll got stretched late into the night, when we stumbled upon a crazy little whiskey bar that had virtually every kind of whiskey I could want, and a bartender who could make killer cocktails and wear a mean bowtie. Bonus, he spoke some English, so despite us being the only customers, we had some company. Then some two more customers materialized. They just so happened to be Taiwanese people! Which means we spent the rest of the night getting drunk with them and going to a bar that had really expensive cats. No really, it was a bar whose claim to fame was $3000 cats you could pet. I think there’s a certain point in your night, when animals start to get involved, that you call it quits. That point was passed for us, so I knew it was time. The next day we were headed to Kyoto and I didn’t want to wake up choking on furballs.

Filed under: tourist shit