Having a Whale of a Time
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2006
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122
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Trip End
Apr 01, 2008
Osaka, Kinki, Japan
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Actually, I stayed at a honton in Osaka for two nights, which is a more traditional-style hotel where you sleep on a slim mattress on the tatami mats on the floor, with sliding wooden screens for doors and tea service. And it was right in the restaurant/entertainment section of town, so I chose well. I got here by riding the Shinkasen bullet train, which runs at speeds of up to 300 km/h, and is really spacious, comfortable, new, punctual, relatively silent and has never had a fatal accident.
Osaka is known as the city of food indulgence, and had a lot of specialty restaurants with big models of the animal (crab, blowfish) in which they specialized out front. I opted to add another critter to the menagerie that has passed through my gullet - whale. Whale stomach, whale flank sashimi, whale tongue soup, whale hot pot, and whale cake. The sashimi was gorgeous - a cross between tuna sashimi and steak tartare, but not fatty or greasy. The stomach was pretty good. The other dishes not so much. The tongue was tasteless, and the meat in the hot pot was fatty and overcooked. Now the opprobrium can begin, but save your real venom for when I have dolphin jerky.
After that, I hit Little Long Beach, a bar owned by a Californian I found on a blog devoted to gaigin friendly Osaka bars. He then showed me a magazine with maps of gaigin bars in Osaka and Kyoto. So not quite the Irish pub method, but it worked all the same. I checked out a couple more, but the I checked out a couple more, but the most I checked out a couple more, but the most amusing was Zerro, which had big plate windows overlooking the main hooker corner, but it is hard to be sexy in 34 degree weather.
On I explored the city, and on Friday night, I went first to Murphy`s, where I met Fang, the aforementioned Thai girl. She was visiting from Kyoto, had never been to an Irish pub before, and wanted to practice her English. We ended up hanging out at a couple different places all night, and she didn`t have a places all night, and she didn`t have a place to stay (her plan was to stay out all night and grab the first train back to Kyoto, which is only about 45 minutes away). I offered my floor. Gracious of me, eh? In the morning, we rode together to
Kyoto
Comments
Tasty part, poison part, tasty part, poison part.