Osaka, Japan

When I traveled to Japan at the end of October 2017 I expected to photograph ancient temples surrounded by bright fall foliage. Instead, I found that the brightest colors do not appear in central Japan until the middle of November. I also found that I liked the modern city of Osaka better than the more traditional rural locations I visited. Osaka’s twenty first century urban lifestyle and the pictures I took there lifted me up from the funk I was experiencing while trying to squeeze some life out of the photos I was taking at the dreary and lonely temples in the countryside.

Osaka was the most modern and dynamic city I visited while in Japan.

In many ways it was even more cosmopolitan, prosperous looking, and western in its temperament than Tokyo. I’ve often encountered Japanese tourists during my travels outside of Japan. They usually look a bit dazed and confused as their guides rush them in compact groups from one “must see” sight to the next. From the looks of Osaka, they saw and absorbed much more practical information about the countries they passed through than I first thought. This became apparent to me when I stumbled onto a Turkish restaurant for lunch in one of Osaka’s side streets, (It was owned and operated by a Japanese family), and later when I passed a number of Spanish tapas restaurants during my wanderings elsewhere in the city. The restaurants I liked best were those that fused the tapas idea with Japanese cuisine. These Japanese “tapas” restaurants offered numerous small plates of Japanese pickled vegetables, fired sardines, and delicious morsels of….I’m not quite sure. These could all be washed down with Japanese draft craft beer. “yama birru”. To be honest, craft beer and brew pubs can be found throughout Japan. They are riding on a wave of popularity that exceeds even that found in the United States, but Osaka seemed to provide the greatest variety of flavors of any Japanese city I visited. I chose, however, not to try a beer made in Hokaido that adds deer semen to its brew. I suspect that there may be some sort of myth attached to its properties that allows the brewery to successfully sell this concoction. While I may characterize its properties as mythical, I’m sure that if some male imbibers believe it will work, then it will, for them.

You can find many other, more practical innovations in Osaka. Around the central train station sidewalks are raised high above the streets do that pedestrians can more easily cross the traffic choked thoroughfares below.