osaka

i went to osaka the other day and it was just for a day.

i took the shinkansen out there: it's that super fast one that japan is famous for and costs an arm and a leg but is faster than flying and takes you to the centre of the city. as i sat on the shinkansen i looked at the buildings fly by and get smaller and smaller as we zoomed out of nagoya. then i saw fields and mountains and small houses dotted about. around the base of a green mountain i saw another train curving around it. it was white like the shinkansen but slower. it moved without sound and snaked through the crops, always sticking by the green mass beside it.

near the american consulate in osaka is a starbucks. next to the starbucks is a credit card shop which offer internet services. the sign outside said internet something something something, 100 yen something 10 minutes, something something something. i asked the girl behind the desk if i could use the internet. she asked if i wanted to use a printer. i said no. she told me use the one on the end. i did. about 3 minutes into using the internet my phone rang and i was called away. as i stood i looked at the sign next to my computer screen which was the same as the sign outside. i wondered what it said. as i left i looked over to the girl behind the desk but she took no notice of me. i walked out without paying.

namba is the main entertainment area of osaka, according to my guide book. next to that is a place called american town. american town looks nothing like america though it did have a tower records. namba has loads of signs, all brightly coloured on clean streets and wide roads. we walked past a shop with a massive moving orange crab outside it. next to it was a shop with an oversized inflatable blowfish. beyond them thousands of light bulbs waiting to be switched on and hundreds of words hanging from buildings, waiting to crush you to pulp.

in the evening we went a place that was strange and smelt of sizzling beef. the ground looked permanently wet and stacks of whirling fans and dirty machinery stood outside every shop. the trains track ran above us, so low you could touch them if you jumped (on a big trampoline). rusty bikes and twisted alleys. outside every restaurant someone trying to get you to come in. the fumes of flesh filled the cramped side streets and you couldn't see the sky. the neon tubes were covered in grime and the light emanating from them seemed tainted. the restaurant was excellent though. i ate a lot of meat.

the way home was also via shinkansen. outside was all darkness and i fell asleep for most of the journey. i woke near the green mountain with the white train snaking around it. moments later we arrived back in nagoya.


song not songs

finished leaves of grass by walt whitman. it was good. it needs time to marinate. i need to grow older and wiser before i can appreciate it. it's like a good piece of ceramic. it grows wiser with age. song of myself far exceeded everything else in that book. if you want to read only one whitman poem, you're better off just reading that one.

also started chronicles by bob dylan. i know dylan has been and, i'm guessing, forever will be a personal malady, but fucking hell this book is good. even if it was written by someone else this would still be a fucking ace book (i guess). some books i read quickly, some i have to read slowly and some i read slowly in hope that certain words and phrases with bury themselves into soft skull and tattoo themselves across my mind.