Another morning dawned and I woke up well rested from my slumber. But my heart sunk a little when I realized I wasn't awoken by a text from my brother. As many of you know, I'm a big baseball fan and a diehard Indians/Guardians fan. They had mad a miraculous run and taken the division while I was in Japan. Then the first round of the playoffs started while I was still there. Due to the vastly different time zone, the games started after I went to sleep and finished before I woke up. So the day before, the Guardians were facing elimination, and they pulled off a win to stay alive. I was woken by a text from my brother and before I read it, I knew he was letting me know that the Guards had won. Well there was no text that morning and my suspicions were confirmed when I opened the ESPN app. They had lost and the comeback was over. While I was severely disappointed, the other side of me realized I would be able to enjoy the remainder of the trip more, knowing I wouldn't have to worry about a game I couldn't watch and a score I couldn't see. But little did I know that the chaos of Osaka was about to strike again.
The pod hotel didn't have a continental breakfast, so we decided to catch a train back to the main station and purchase bullet train tickets to eventually head to Tokyo. A common question I got asked after returning to the US was if I experienced being shoved into train cars as shown in viral videos that made their rounds on the internet many years ago. Up to this point I hadn't. We progressed with a now familiar routine of going to the ticket kiosk, purchasing the ticket we needed for our next destination, and heading to the platform to wait for the train. The first one came cruising in in minutes, but as we watched the handful of people board in front of us, we saw that the train cars were so packed, we decided to wait for the next one as were were now first in the queue line. The thing was, we were in the heat of the Osaka morning rush hour.
When the next train pulled up, there was a little more space, but not much. Ryan picked up his bag and got on first. I did the same and followed him in. At that point, there was maybe room for one more person behind me. Suddenly I felt the person who got on behind me press into me, which cause me to press into Ryan's backpack. Then by the force I was feeling, I felt two-three more people squish their way on and I now felt like a sardine packed in a can. While there were no workers physically pushing people on, the people themselves knew every train was like this so they squeezed themselves in. And while people did look miserable, they also had the look of dealing with this everyday. So for three stops, we had to hold steady as people physically squeezed through space that shouldn't exist. I would have to say this was probably the first unpleasant thing I really experienced in Japan. While the lack of trash cans was not fun, it was more of a minor inconvenience compared to the level of uncomfortableness we were experiencing.
Finally the train got to our stop and it was our turn to squeeze our way out. It was a relief to be off that train. Once again in the maze of tunnels, platforms, and shops, we made our way to the counter where we could purchase bullet train tickets. There were quite a few people there when we arrived. So we had to take a number and wait. It was probably a solid 15 minutes by the time out number was called. Once we got up there, we tried to purchase tickets for the mid afternoon train. But in the process the, clerk told us he'd have to do that on the other computer as they weren't selling that far in advance yet. Ryan looked over at me and said there was one other thing he wanted to check out in Osaka, but if I was cool with skipping it, we get tickets for a morning train departing to to long from now. I told him I was good with that. The time was 8:35am and I was expecting him to get the tickets for the 9:21am train. But he selected the 9:09am ones which was no problem in the moment.
Still not having eaten breakfast, we decided to check out the place across from the ticket counter. I thought maybe we could grab something to go, but when I saw it was a sit down place, I was about to tell Ryan we should go somewhere else, but he had already engaged with the friendly hostess who was already showing us to a table. The place was exceptionally busy which made sense as it was rush hour and we were near the train station. We both ordered something simple in hopes it would come quick. My meal ended up coming in first and Ryan's took longer than expected. In fact, I pretty much finished mine before Ryan's food showed up. The minutes were ticking by and we were cutting it really close. Ryan's food finally showed up and I went to take care of the bill. He wolfed down three-fourths of an egg sandwich and we skedaddled towards the gate.
We got there three minutes before the train was scheduled to leave and I slid my ticket in first. It got rejected. Shocked I tried again. Rejected again. Ryan tried his. Nope rejected. The toll of the high rush of Osaka was beginning to show its teeth. Our emotions were running thin and Ryan was concerned we just sent $90 down the drain. I took a deep breath and quickly mentioned we should talk to the gate agent. We had to wait for a couple of people, but made it to the counter with a minute left on the clock. I handed him my ticket and quickly explained the gate was rejecting it. He took a look, gave it a punch and sent me through. Ryan did the same and made it. No time to celebrate, we ran up the stairs and to the platform. The train was still there. But we weren't out of the woods yet. Our car where we reserved our seats was 10 cars down the platform. We started busting butt down the line, but then Ryan made the call to simply get on the train and walk through the cars. That way if it started to leave, we wouldn't be left behind. It was awkward as we had to push our bags through car after car, dodging others who had found their seats and were putting their bags up on the racks.
After what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was about 7-8 minutes from the restaurant to our seats, we finally made it to ours and plopped down out of exhaustion and relief. We survived what I would call the second snag of the trip and now had a 2 hour bullet train ride to decompress and relax.
The Japan country side once again blew by with a slight blur. What normally takes 6.5 hours by car was done in two. Once again we found ourselves in the capital city...Tokyo. While we were too early to check into our hotel, we still went there first to leave our bags at the front desk so we wouldn't have to use a locker and this was the place we would call home for the next few days. Once we dropped off our bags, we headed out to the streets of Tokyo. There were really no plans set for today as we had planned to stay in Osaka for a tad longer. Thus, we decided to free-roam. A vending machine was our first stop, followed by a small park by the river. We chose this park because it had a decent size geocache there that I wanted to find. To our surprise, there we a sweet view of the city buildings lining the river. I took it an as I hunted and found the geocache. I was able to drop off all the trackables (geocaching game pieces) I had with me. Next we wandered into a small toy car shop to see if they had anything good. It was packed to this gills with all sorts of small toy cars, with prices that ranged from fairly reasonable to collector territory. I did not buy anything here as there was still so much of Tokyo that was going to pry my tourism dollars from me.
The rest of the day was simple wandering and nothing of legend, but there was one small thing that added to my official introduction to Tokyo. When deciding on what to do for dinner, we came across a little hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant and decided to wander in. It was a very small place with a couple other customers inside. I wasn't sure what to expect, but was up for any sort of surprise. The first came in the form of the main server. He was definitely not of Japanese decent. Turns out he wasn't directly Indian either. His roots lay in the middle east. But he spoke really good English and glowed with good energy. After he seated us, I watched him zip back and forth and switch from English to Japanese with fluidity. The people he worked with seemed genuinely happy with smiles all around.
Ryan and I ordered different curries, and even though I've tasted many a curry in my day, including authentic Indian curry made by an Indian himself, what was put before us and was entered my mouth on that night was absolutely delicious. Ryan and I ate, talked travel, and took in the surrounding atmosphere. We ended up conversing with the server for a short bit and I had to ask him how many languages he spoke. I believe the number he said was 6, but it may have been 5, either way it was still incredibly impressive. We finished the food, paid our bill, said goodbye to the staff, and once again slipped into Japan's night. That last little adventure was a reminder of the wonders of travel. The hidden gems you can find both in a country and its people. Truly remarkable.
