Stealth Camper Achievement and Long Long Day

This will be a long post as a lot happened yesterday, and its somewhat blended with today.  After sleeping 13 hours I woke up and got packed.  I waited to take a shower as someone was already in there, but afterwards got my first attempt at a Japanese shower.  It has 2 showerheads.  One for sitting on a stool and actually cleaning yourself, and another for use in the bathtub.  No time for that though, I cleaned up and went down to check out.  A younger guy was there to greet me.  After checking out he offered me an umbrella as it was raining a little bit.  I declined, but he double checked and I said no thanks and pointed to my backpack and made a gesture like putting on a raincoat hood complete with sound effect.  He wished me well and I took off to the train station.

This was train trial #2 for me.  I had to get to downtown Osaka.  Osaka Castle being my target destination.  I was able to connect to the Osaka Free Wifi, which is super handy, but is pretty spotty.  It suggested a train and a connecting train to get as close before I needed to walk.  I took a screenshot in case I lost connection which was handy and bought by ticket.  It took about an hour to get to Namba Station, only because it has so many stops along the way.  When I got to Namba Station I found out that it was huge.  I wandered around trying to find the rail line I needed.  Eventually I figured out it was on the subway.  I went to the ticket booth and clicked English -> Ticket.  I was presented with 3 prices, which I was not expecting.  I stared at it for a while, stared at the map, canceled out, went back in.  After a minute a guy working there asked if he could help and I told him the station.  He was like oh its this one.  So I got there and started walking along the river towards Osaka Castle.

This is where my compass started coming in handy as I had lost signal.  I knew the general direction to the castle and followed the river most of the way.  I had a great time at the castle, it was filled with tourists and locals.  The history of it was hard to keep track of but I think the main takeaway is that it burned down a lot of times.  There would be an old wood carving of the castle, and then one next to it where it was like "And here`s a painting of it burning down in the Summer war of 16xx".  There were a lot of those.

After that I started to head to DenDen Town which means "Electric Town".  Its Osaka`s answer to Akihabara in Tokyo.  Its shop after shop and alley after alley filled with electronic shops, anime stores, card stores, video game store, hardware, tools, and creepy maid cafes.  There was a strip of the maid cafes where they`d have a girl outside handing out fliers and trying to flag people down.  They mostly go ignored but I picked up a flier from one girl who seemed bored.  I think its an animal-girl themed cafe, like wearing fox ear things and tails.  The idea in these cafes is that you get charged a premium on the booze, and girls sit and talk with you and tell you how cool you are for an added fee.  At any rate I also went to Super Potato which is somewhat of a mecca for video game nerds, moreso the one in Tokyo.  They have just about everything but their prices have inflated over the years (according to folks online) and that was true.  Their prices are well above Ebay prices now simply due to it being so well known and a tourist destination.  The item I was looking for was there, a Gameboy Light, but at an exorbitant price of 18000yen, like 155usd.  It was a little beat up and was double the cost of what you get it for online.

After wandering for a while I headed over to Dotonbori, a tourist highlight and alley by the riverside.  Before getting there you hit a massive shopping center.  Its not really a center so much as indoor alleys loaded with mid to high end shops and food.  When I got to Dotonbori I spotted a line for Takoyaki and went in it.  Thats fried octopus balls for the unafilliated.  It took about 40 min to get through it and I sat down and ordered their monthly special with a beer.  It was pretty good, I`m not sure what the special flavor in there was but I like regular better.  Either way, it was tasty.

At this point it was starting to get latish, like 7:45 and I decided to start heading toward my marker for my first stealth camp spot.  Naniwanaka Park.  It was recommended to someone else who had done the same thing.  It took a while to get there and I made it there ate 8:30.  It was dark, nobody was there, and I picked what seemed the perfect spot.  As I pulled my tent out and started putting the poles in, some dude on a bike entered that park and looked over at me while I was clinking away with the metal poles.  I was like, oh well I`ve come this far I`ll just keep going.  So he pedaled off and I just set up everything.  It was cold, and according to the weather far away the coldest night of the week.  It got down to 37 degrees F which it still is.  So I`m in my sleeping bag, being super paranoid that that guy went off to grab the 5 O`s (that`s police for those who aren`t living the thug life).  He didn`t, but it was just like backcountry camping for the first time.  Every little noise freaks you out, someone walking buy or talking.  I did fall asleep but woke up every 2 hours or so until 3am.  At which point I catnapped until 4.  I got up, organized and starting putting things away, took me half an hour total.  My takeaway here was that I need to come in later, and leave at about the time I did.

Now I felt much better because in the end nothing happened, but those first hours where really nerve-wracking.  I went to go find a bathroom.  I headed back towards Dotonbori as it had something I knew I would want, a Starbucks.  My problem is that it doesn`t open until 8. so I have 3 hours to kill.  I spent one of them in a Donkihote, its a massive multi-story sprawling store with just weird stuff on every floor.  It has a floor for candy/snacks/drinks, a floor for sex toys, a floor for makeup, a floor for souvenirs, electronics, home goods etc all with narrow aisles and filled floor to ceiling.  It also has a restaurant with one bored looking dude there.

So that worked for a little bit, but it was still cold out and my backpack was chafing my sides.  I spotted an internet cafe. They have really good deals if you stay 6 hours or more, but I only needed to kill 2.  I walked into the `Gran Cyber Cafe b@gus`.  The guy at the front looked like Lester from the Adams Family.  I greeted him and held up a hand with 2 fingers `Ni-ju Onegaishimasu` (2 hours please).  He asks if I smoke, I say no.  I blank out when he says the price and hand him a 5000 yen (50 bucks).  I get the change back, and it was 1620 yen, about 15 bucks.  No biggy.  He hands me a pass with the room number and gives me directions, its around the corner to the right.  What I come across is a weaving corridors of black cubicles, one part saying `Girls only`, a black bookcase room filled with Manga, and finally the area I go into.  There`s an unknown number of sleeping and barley awake men in here, some snuffling occasionally, one snoring.  When the time gets close alarms go off in their cubes.  The cubes themselves have a padded floor, a desk with a computer, tv remote, and headset.  I could lay down in it, but anyone taller would be a no-go.  Everything is black.  There`s a light above that you can turn on and the black prevents it from reflecting up to the ceiling.  The cubicles don`t have ceilings.  I`m typing this up on that very computer, and its a very strange experience to say the least.

So I`ll see what I want to do today.  I have another park picked, but maybe I`ll find another internet cafe.  I`ll upload some pics at some point today.  Possibly while sitting in Starbucks.  On my to-do list is walk less, maybe go to the Ukiyo-e Museum, and go to America-mura, a neighborhood based on us!  I`m going to go use the facilities here and check out the all you can drink stuff.  I have almost exactly one hour left.