Day 1 in Japan: The Orange press and Monkey Man of Osaka

My plane arrived in Tokyo on Monday evening some forty minutes earlier than scheduled, which came as a big relief to me because I was afraid the airport shops would all start closing at eleven. I managed to exchange some money and buy a public transport pass. I also bought a SIM card, during which process I realised that I had lost my UK SIM card somewhere in Pakistan and spent much of the train ride from the airport trying to figure out how to block it. While unpacking my bags at the hotel, I also realised that I had lost my adapter. I must have left it in a plug at the airport in Kuala Lumpur.

I spent my first morning in Japan, therefore, walking around the neighbourhood looking for a place to buy an adapter – a search that took three quarters of an hour. Every single 7-eleven and Family Mart I visited was stocked with exactly the same electronics and no travel adapters. I visited perhaps seven or eight before I finally found one that had an adapter tag on an empty shelf, so I picked it up and carried it to the store attendant to ask whether they still had any in the back. They did. I returned to the hotel just after Ciaran had woken up, and we soon had all our bags packed for our ride to Osaka.

Despite buying our tickets together and asking for reserved seats, the lady at the counter sat us not next to each other but behind each other, which defeated the whole purpose of the reservation (we later learned that it is nearly impossible to book side-by-side seats a few minutes before departure because of how popular the reserved carriages are). We made the most of the situation – Ciaran by falling asleep and I by catching up on some outstanding administrative tasks. We arrived in Osaka a little before one o’clock. Since this was too early to check-in, we left our bags at the unserviced reception and left to eat lunch. This was the second hotel in Japan where we did not personally interact with the staff a single time, which is perhaps an indicator of just how many jobs can be at least partly automated amidst Japan’s labour crisis.

For lunch, we ate at a family-run soba place serving handmade noodles. We had chosen it as it was one of the few places that Google Maps clearly identified as having vegetarian options – the option here being soba with some kind of sweet fried tofu. I really enjoyed this unexpected combination. Following that, we began our tourist itinerary. We boarded the metro to Sakai, a less frequented town just south of Osaka known for its imperial tombs, which take the form of mounds shaped as keyholes, circles, and rectangles surrounded by moats and fenced off from visitors due to their sacred nature.

We got off the metro at Sakaihigashi and walked around the closest tomb – the Mausoleum of Emperor Hanzei – passing through the small Hochigai Shrine north of its moat. Just southwest of the station, we entered Sakai City Hall and rode the elevator up to the top floor. The building houses an observatory with views of several nearby tombs as well as Osaka’s skyline, though it functions in part as a small community centre where people come to play the piano and entertain their children. We took a few looks in each direction but spent most of our time there putting money in the orange press machine and watching it work while a little animated orange danced above the screen’s progress bar. On our way back to Osaka, we also made a stop at the Sumiyoshi Grand Shrine, a Shinto shrine from the year 211.

Our last stop for the day was Osaka Castle. We made it just in time to catch the last rays of sunlight striking the walls of the castle and the tops of the cherry trees, after which the coldness of the night quickly set in. We would have scurried back to our hotel immediately had we not happened upon a strange little show in castle gardens. Facing a group of children in the company of their parents, a man in a long dark kimono was showing off his pet macaque, who was himself dressed in a smart little colourful vest. The macaque jumped over ever taller hurdles and ever longer distances between the wooden steps his trainer prepared for him, always landing on his hands and walking a few paces on them with his bottom pointing to the sky. At the end of the show, the macaque waved to his audience and bowed together with his master.