Blog

Hanging out in the common room of our Osaka hostel one day we started talking to Italian Rik. Rik has been living in Osaka for a year and kindly offered to show us around town.

After a short stop at the post office (postcards coming your way people!), we went to find a very special cafe Rik had visited 7 month earlier…

From the outside it didn’t look like much, on the first floor tugged away over one of the million other Japanese shops.

Inside, as always, we were handed slippers.

… and the place was filled with cats. Rules were not to stress the cats by waking or picking them up. But other than that we could just hang out for an hour.

Cat cafés (or pet cafés in general) are ment for people who don’t have the time or the space for pets at home. It’s kind of brilliant if you think about it. But as always, the Japanese have taken it a step further. And so you can also go to a “cuddle café” and have a girl lie down and look you deep in the eyes for half and hour – You know, if you don’t have the time or the space for a girlfriend. You’re allowed to hug them and they are allowed to clean your ears (because Japan) but that’s all.

Anyways, back to the cats. I’m not sure if the cats were trained, or if they just really loved blankets. But when you got a blanket cats flogged around you and went to sleep. They were really tame and cuddly.

There must have been 12 – 15 cats just roaming around the 3 rooms and it was a surprisingly relaxing experience.

Chapter 2

Returning to the hostel all excited we showed our pictures to the others and one girl replied: “Oh you haven’t seen the owl cafe?” Then she pulls out her phone and shows us pictures of her friend holding this tiny owl. I believe Isa’s comment went something like: “OH MY GOD WE HAVE TO GO WHEN CAN WE GO WE HAVE TO GO OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!?!”

Next morning we were scheduled to go to Kyoto, but with Rik’s help we found the Owl Family Cafe on the way. It was then that we were introduced to Bibi-chan:

This little girl is probably the cutest thing to have ever set foot (claw?) on this earth!

There were around 15 different owls in the cafe including some really big ones. Having never seen an owl before this was a really unique experience. Their plumage was extremely beautiful and surprisingly soft to touch.

As to weather or not the owls were being treated well, we don’t know. They seemed at peace with us and they had time to rest in between visitors and so there were some owls we were not allowed to touch. I really hope they let them out sometimes to fly but it’s hard to tell when everything is Japanese…

However they seemed healthy and this was really one of the highlights of our time in Osaka.

We looked at each other desperately. Was this it? Had we exhausted all our options? I couldn’t believe it – how could this be happening? Could it really be, that we were going to miss the most important event of the year? Could it really be that we were going to miss – The Oscars?!

Help! How do we watch the #Oscars in #Japan?! Breaks my heart that we are going to miss @ActuallyNPH 😔

— Isa Lykke Hansen (@IsaLykke) February 21, 2015

Okay okay, I know this might seem like a bit of an overreaction. After all it is just a TV-show. But the thing is; we don’t dress up for Halloween. We don’t go out on Valentines Day. We don’t care much for the New Year. But watching the Oscars, that’s Our Thing (and, I guess, a couple other people’s Thing but that’s beside the point)

So after having unsuccessfully tried different kinds of streaming services and having made our friends and family promise to try and record it for us, we decided that we should at least have some sort of celebration. Because of the time difference the Oscar wasn’t until Monday morning on the 23rd, so Sunday evening on the 22nd we raided the nearest 100yen store for balloons and DIY garlands, put on our nicest clothes (which wasn’t so nice after all, but you have to give us points for trying) and turned Momonga Village into Shikoko’s very own Hollywood Boulevard!

We discussed re-watching The Theory of Everything but decided on Birdman instead, since non of us had seen it before. It ended up winning everything, so I guess it was a lucky pick.

We had such a great night and then … well to be honest we all got piss-drunk on cheap, leftover saké and when I woke up the next morning (in Victoria and Valerie’s room) I was still drunk. And thus begun one of the worst hangovers of my life.

It wasn’t all bad though because 15 min. before the Oscar show started, Jonas managed to sign us up for TV2’s streaming service and we watched THE WHOLE SHOW with only like 3 fall-outs!

So a tip for all you new travellers out there: make sure to always bring an IT-guy on your trip. It’s sure to make everything just a little bit more … legendary! 😉

There I was. In the middle of the Japanese highland, the clear night sky above me, the soothing sound of clucking water cuddling my ears. There I was. Alone and naked as the day I was born.

It was really just bad planing (or no planing) that led us to this heavenly place. Earlier we found a promising AirBnB apartment up in the mountainous Mimasaka prefecture but we never heard back from the guy, so we decided to just drive in that general direction and hope for an answer before nightfall. On the way up we saw a sign towards Yonogo Onsen Village and I remembered reading something about it, so we turned right and found what seemed to be a quiet and mostly empty (Japanese) holiday town.

First things first. We went straight to the local public bath to relax after the long, exhausting drive. (left-side driving is not something we’re used to, mind you)

The public bath in Yonogo is less like a bath and more like the most luxurious spa I have ever been to. There are three large indoor onsen and five outdoor stone “tubs”, three of them overflowing into each other like miniature waterfalls.

The thought of what it would cost me to go to a place like this in Denmark is dizzying even if just for an hour. Here we paid 700 JPY (~39 DKK/6USD) pr. person including a fresh towel and you get to stay as long as you like.

Most of the onsen in Japan (with a few exceptions like the private and super expensive ryokan onsen) are separated between men and women and so everyone is naked. Before you enter you sit on little stools and rinse yourself with buckets of warm water and soap. This ritual – besides obviously preventing dirt in the onsen – is really relaxing and prepares you for what’s lies ahead (spoiler: It is heaven which lies ahead)

The first time I went, I didn’t know you were supposed to use a wash cloth for washing. On the way out this older woman signalled for me to take one of hers and when I tried to give it back to her (after having thoroughly washed it of course!) she smiled and waved me off with a “present-o!”. People here are so nice.

Afterwards we went to look for a hotel in the neighbourhood, since the AirBnB guy had written us back that he couldn’t host us. After driving around to a couple of places, tired and not in the mood for more adventure, we settled on a place that was really over budget, but we figured, “what the heck” and settled in. As it turned out that extra money bought us a 6 person bungalow and the above mentioned in- and outdoor onsen which might as well have been private since nobody else was using them. Sometimes it pays off to travel in low-season.

We stayed in the city for two nights and the next time we went to the public bath I had some of the basics down. I knew to wash myself with a wash cloth as supposed to using my hands and I knew not to put my hair in the water (which I had unknowingly done the first time and only afterwards noticed that nobody else did. Of course no one said anything to me because, as it seems, the Japanese would rather be dead that impolite)

This morning the outside area was completely empty but for me and one old lady. Her skin looked like it was 3 sizes too big. Her breasts went to her stomach and her butt to her knees. She looked like a small, wrinkled apple with sticks for arms and legs. I loved it. She was beautiful.

Which brings me to the real reason why I love these onsen so much. In the onsen there is no pretending. No pulling in your stomach or straightening your back to look skinnier, no covering yourself with a towel. Everyone is naked, and nobody cares. Everyone is beautiful in their nakedness and the Japanese know this and have accepted it as a vital part of their culture.

We nodded in recognition of each other but stayed silent. One time she pointed to the sky and smiled – I take it she was commenting on the sun which had just burst out from the ever-changing sea of clouds. The weather shifts quickly in the mountains. We discovered that the day before when we went to the top of one of the hills overlooking the valley. We kept putting our jackets on and off as the sky presented us with a mix of sunny rays and chilling wind.

Later in the dressing room I saw one of the older ladies applying a cream to her legs. On the bottle was a picture of a human body so I applied a gentle layer to my legs, arms and back, doing so noticing a slight smell of camphor and peppermint. It reminded me of my grandmother. By closer inspection I discovered it was a muscle-pain reliever. I guess I still have a lot to learn…

Valentines day we set out in a new direction from the hotel. Turning a corner we were suddenly at a pretty high building.

“I think that’s the highest building I have ever seen…” Isa said. My reply was; naaah it’s not that high… We then started counting and both got to 60 floors. Turns out Harukas is the highest building in Japan. Access to a little garden at the 16th floor was free, but to go to the top floor (58-60) you had to pay an admission fee.

The view from 16th floor garden was impressive. The city went as far as the eyes could see in all directions. But it was early in the day and we needed food so we opted for a nearby shopping mall.

We found a huge collection of photo booths that was heavily visited next to a very nice food court. Denmark could really learn something from Japan when it comes to eating out. Even a food court in a shopping mall serves really good food. We spend the day browsing shops and eating.

As the sun set we went back to Harukas, this time to the top, and was meet by this view:

On our first day we came by this tower which suddenly didn’t look so big any more.

We had fun playing around with the shutter speed on our camera and annoyed everyone around us by crawling around on the floor and moving things around to get the right framing.

We ended up spending almost 3 hours up there and was kicked out as the last ones by 10pm.

Everyone knows that half the joy of travelling in non-english speaking countries – and Asian ones in peticular – is the sheer abundance of Engrish. In this article John Spacey argues that it stops being funny after you have been here for a while. But clearly we havn’t been here long ’cause I still find these hysterically funny:

The first thing you have to do is to wake. the second thing you have to do is to look up the word “coherence”in a dictionary.

Hitler agrees…

You can’t slip out!

This actually kinda makes sense …

This was taken at the aquarium …

Mind = BLOWN!

We didn’t stay there …

To be continued.

/Isa

Yesterday I cashed in on my Christmas present from Isa, a trip to Osaka Aquarium. One of the largest aquariums in the World, we spent 5 hours just walking through it. That’s when I noticed some funny things about the place. E.g. For every 30m there was a sign on the floor telling you 740m (to the exit), and a sign on the wall telling you 50m to next toilet. You wold never have to do more than turn your head to know exactly how far you were from basic necessities. And by basic necessities I mean a heated toilet seat with build in bidet and music and a sink with integrated soap dispenser and hand dryer.

The aquarium was structured with habitats from the Ring of Fire going around the Pacific Ocean. With a huge 9 m deep tank in the middle, containing a whale shark and manta rays. You go down in a spiral around the tank and see all climates ranging from the Antarctic with pinguins to tropical with Sloths.

The acrylic glass panes in the big Pacific Ocean Tank is 30 cm thick and weighs 314 tons in total.

Some of the deep sea creatures were quite scary. I wouldn’t want to meet one of these craps in a dark alley.

Most of the animals looked like they were fine, but off cause it’s hard not to feel a bit sad when you see the penguins which look like they were taken straight from the zoo scene in Happy Feet.

These guys didn’t look too pleased either…

The otters looked like they were having a ball though. Sprinting around, jumping through the water and cuddling on a rock.

At the end of the day I must admit even though the whale shark was much smaller than expected (Quote: Isa) the Osaka Aquarium did kick Kattegatcentrets butt. (or at least it’s a lot bigger 🙂

 

Jonas

We made it! After a pleasant 24h trip we touched down in Kansai International airport in Osaka just in time to pick up our portable wifi! #BestMoneyEverSpentEver

We found Osaka to be almost hauntingly quite on a Wednesday night. The train and a few cars was all you could hear and even those seemed muted somehow. Other than that things seem strangely familiar and as I noted to Jonas yesterday, we might as well have landed in Copenhagen. They do have funny cat signs though.

But as you can tell from the picture below, so far everything is basically business as usual.