It was always my dream to visit Japan. I am that guy that watched anime as a kid, and took Japanese as my language in college. I never was a Weeboo or some Japanese fan boy but I have always had something drawing me to parts of the culture. When I first got to university my major was going to be Japanese but the classes no longer existed. So to me this was it. The one place I have wanted to visit my whole life and it totally lived up to my expectations.
By now I am almost broke, I am down to my last $2,000 and I have just landed in a country known for being expensive, but I knew this and planed ahead. Hotels, hostels, and traveling in Japan is expensive but staying put is not. In fact is really quite cheap to just LIVE in japan. So that’s what I did. I lived in Osaka, Japan for 3 months the limit of my 90 Visa. I stayed in a shared house made up of mostly foreign students and only paid $300 a month for my room.
My plan was to self-study my Japanese back to a useable level. It had been 6 years since I took Japanese at University and I was rusty to say the least. But I never got around to it at all. The shared house had English speakers in it so we all just defaulted to that. No need to speak it at home. The shopkeepers all say the same stuff so interactions with them are limited. You don’t need to hold a conversation, just know enough or order and respond as needed. I had that, and if I didn’t someone I was with did. What was really quite shocking was how little I needed Japanese at all while there. So I never got around to working on it.
I arrived in the city in late June a day or two before my birthday. Japan in the summer time is an amazing place to be. There is a festival what seems like every weekend! I had never seen so many fireworks or festivals before. It was absolutely wonderful and wasn’t something I had planned. My group of friends and I went to as many as possible.
Osaka city was founded by merchants, while other Japanese cities were founded by Samurai. This makes it unique in Japan and is looked down upon by all other Japanese people but to an American it feels natural. I absolutely loved everything about the city. I loved the food, the people, the culture, the sights, everything was just perfect. It really did feel like Osaka was my home for a time. The lights, the sounds, the arcades, the shops its like the Vegas of Japan and really quite wonderful.
It wasn’t until my side trip out to Kyoto that I saw the more reserved side of Japan. I found my self hungry most the time not used to there not being food every 10 feet and shocked by the total lack of arcades. I realized just how different Osaka really was and how wonderful it was to see this part of Japan. I didn’t just like Osaka, I really loved it.
