Back to Osaka
It was even warmer this morning, so I got going at around 9.30, stopping off at a café before starting the three-hour drive back down to Osaka.
The drive was fairly uneventful. I’ve started watching TV while driving, which I know isn’t ideal, but surprisingly the phone laws here seem quite relaxed – everyone’s using them at red lights.
Once I found a cheaper car park (I think – I still haven’t figured out the signs. I suspect they’re deliberately misleading so you’re never quite sure of the cost. Of course, they’re still all in Japanese, so that might be part of the problem), I headed out for a walk in the sunshine. I ended up calling my brother and his girlfriend to plan a bit for when we’ll meet and where we’ll be staying – they’re coming out at the end of this month and we’re going to travel around the Izu Peninsula together, which I’m really looking forward to. We’re meeting on the 3rd of May, which is still a little while away, but with it being Golden Week in Japan, accommodation is incredibly difficult to find.
I met Juri at a smoky izakaya in the Shinsaibashi area of Osaka, which on reflection feels like a much more local part of town than the super-touristy Dotonbori area a bit further south. We had a few beers and shared what, in East London, would be called “small plates” – I can highly recommend the broccoli with anchovy dip if you ever see it on a menu. We’d both got tickets to see some stand-up comedy, in English, by two performers I’ve been following on Instagram for a while. We got there at around 9 for a 9.30 start and were early enough to grab front-row seats – always a bold move at stand-up, but we figured we’d be fine.
The comedy was brilliant and lasted about an hour and a half. The comedians even stuck around afterwards to chat with the crowd and take photos, which I thought was a really nice touch. While we were there, we bumped into a couple of other friends, and on their recommendation headed to an all-you-can-drink bar/club up the road – it was only about £7.50 for unlimited drinks until closing at around 1am. Extremely dangerous, I know.
After marinading our livers for a couple of hours, we said goodbye to the others and Juri and I wandered through the still-packed Friday night streets of Osaka before heading back to sleep in our respective cars.
Planning a lie-in tomorrow before setting off up north.
