umeda redo

Umeda and I got off to a bad start last week.  Granted, it wasn’t Umeda’s fault.  Bizarrely though, I was not looking forward to returning.

Katie had to leave for work at 9:50 a.m., so I stayed at her place for the better wifi and also to wait for the temperature to rise–it was 39 degrees.  Katie said she would text me very specific directions to her school.  I told her I thought I was ok, since I literally wandered around that area map-less for many hours last Sunday.  She said, “Mom, I got lost the first 4 times I went there.”  Oh.

So I used Katie’s powerful wifi to talk to a couple friends at home.  I really don’t understand how I can have my computer and texting working on wifi at my apartment, but no phone calls.  But glad to have what I have.

As promised, she sent me a paragraph of specific instructions to get to her school and I followed them to the letter.  Just like the day before, it was quite different finding my way on my own.  I won’t belabor the many ways I continue to get lost, but suffice it to say I doubled-back at least 4 times until I finally saw the area that led to her elevators.  Good thing I left early!  But as I sat having coffee in the mall with the life-sized whale, I felt discouraged–was I going to get my butt kicked by Umeda again?

I planned to look for an area called Nakazakicho, which according to an article in the New York Times my dad had sent me, still had wooden homes remaining that were not destroyed in the WWII bombings.  I saw my first American flag, looking pretty warn next to a small Statue of Liberty; I couldn’t tell if it was a storefront or what it was.

I could tell I was getting closer when the streets became narrow alleys.  There were small shops and homes that went on for blocks, with the occasional car squeezing through.  It was like walking around in Florence, Italy.

I finally found an old wooden building, which had been converted into a Cafe.  I noticed one of the employees in the small street in front of the cafe.  She was motioning to a coworker, then pointing to timidly to a vehicle parked in front of the store.  I looked inside the car and there were 2 young men, 1 in the driver’s seat and 1 shotgun, completely and totally asleep!  20 minutes later I was near there again and the car was still there.

There were many modern buildings combined into the neighborhood.  I found like a courtyard park, where parents were playing with their small children.  It was very small.  There are almost no trees in Osaka and definitely no grass.

I circled around and around, feeling confident with my google maps.  You have to be careful, though–it takes a lot of battery power to run maps, so I continually turned it off and on.  I ended up passing back by that cafe, so I poked my head inside (the car was finally gone, by the way).  There was no one around, but I could hear people upstairs.  There were signs everywhere, but all in Japanese.  I finally found one in English, handwritten:  Leave your shoes here and go up stairs.

With hesitance, I put my shoes on the shelf with a dozen others and went up the narrow stairs.  At the top of the stairs I was greeted by a woman who took me through a narrow hall of rooms.  She showed me into a room with a square short table and waved me to sit on the mat on the floor.  There was a screen next to me and I could hear 2 woman speaking on the other side; we were the only ones in the bedroom-size room.

The hostess brought back a “English Menu” and pointed at a button to push on the table when I was ready.  The menu was written neatly by hand.  The coffee and beer were the same price, pretty expensive at 700 yen.  I decided maybe having a mid-afternoon beer would help me manage Umeda, so I ordered “Yebisu and snack.”

The snack was a few peanuts and maybe rice thingys.   It was very comfortable sitting there in the warmth, watching a little girl run back and forth–I think her mom worked there.  It is actually quite a core workout, sitting on the floor for that long!

Maybe I was feeling braver from the Yebisu, but I really enjoyed my walk back through the huge market area.  It goes on for many blocks, and it just seems so weird because it is right next to all the skyscrapers–banks, hotels, malls.

I found a music store completely filled with classical albums and cd’s, with a matching rock and roll store next door, and I was heartened by the  fact that music, of course, crosses all languages.  The stores were busy, mostly with very serious men rooting through Beethoven and Chopin in one store, and Led Zeppelin and The Beatles in the other.  I stayed for a long time.  Right next door was an indoor golfing store.  Small as it was, people were putting and driving.  The next store had floor after floor of those machines that grab a toy, then usually drop it.  Dozens of machines held all sizes of toys, with people of all ages trying to get lucky.

I got back to Katie’s area with an hour to spare.  I wondered it there was a grocery store on the bottom floor of the very luxurious department store.  Turns out there are 2 basement floors.  As I came down the first escalator I was pretty excited–it looked like specialty bakeries and food.  And it was packed!  There were so many people crammed up to those counters, ordering specialty cakes and desserts. There was no way I was getting anything there; I was literally being shuffled by the crowd.  I suspect it was because March 14 is White Day–Japan’s version of Valentine’s Day <3

So I found a less crowded food stand and got an oval shaped dinner item.  They had one sliced open and I could tell it was egg and maybe tuna–as Katie says, “mystery meat.”  Turned out to be maybe pork and tasted like those tiny frozen egg rolls we used to heat in the oven when we were kids.

It would take at least 10 minutes to get back to the escalator, so I thought I’d take the “other” escalator, except there wasn’t one.  So I got out of the store and followed the hallway and stores and BAM! I was back in the mall with the whale–apparently the bakery area went completely across under the street!

So Umeda is like Mall at Millenia mixed with Florida Mall and International Drive, as well as a full size Japanese Market, next to something like Italy.  Probably there is nothing there you couldn’t find!

Definitely a better day–maybe Umeda and I made up a  little today.

Photo:  Huge market area embedded within the skyscrapers of Umeda