Inbetween Cities

I’m inbetween cities right now. Osaka has been and gone. This time there was no drunkenness or stress and the seediness was happily avoided. Instead, K and I met up with a friend and went on a relaxed wander. In the course of our visit, we saw the aquarium, rambled around a park, found a happily grotty bar and ate terrifying volumes of food. All as it should be.

Osaka is a rough around the edges sort of place and that’s comforting as a Londoner and ex-Manchester resident. Almost immediately after arrival we got talking to a Japanese couple who were in town for a concert, one of whom was sporting a Spiritualized T-shirt. This made me realize that in 9 months of living in Okayama, I have never once seen a Japanese person wearing a T-shirt for a band that I like. I have missed alternative culture a bit (okay-I can see how ridiculous to use “wears a band T-shirt” as some kind of barometer for whatever alternative culture may be, but it sort of makes sense to me.) and it felt good to be surrounded by a greater range of going out options and asymmetrical haircuts. I also like how much more relaxed things are in the city without the risk of being spotted by teachers, parents or, god forbid, students.

Although I head to Tokyo tonight, I realized that I don’t actually have much of a schedule yet. For example, we’re going to visit Nikko and stay nearby-but I don’t actually know very much about Nikko. I feel a bit tourist-blind about it all. We also made the decision to stay in a nice-sounding hotel in the Nikko area, which will be fun-but part of me is like “why aren’t you spending the full 4 days in Tokyo as that’s what you’re interested in?” I also feel like I really need to have some independent time in Tokyo at some point and I’m looking forward to meeting up with friends there and maybe doing some solo exploring too.

Finally, I have become an uncle again. I have an awesome new niece called Martha who I will meet in a few months time. She’s pretty cool, from what I’ve seen so far. It does sometimes feel like my family spawn every 60 seconds, but I’m okay with that.