Osaka, Shiga and around

first days in Japan

After a super flight of a few hours, on 21/10/2004 we arrived in Osaka. We were greeted at the airport by Masaki, a Japanese friend of ours, who took us to his home. The trip was quite long, also because Osaka airport is built on an artificial island a few km off the coast, which, combined with the "disheartening" traffic (a traffic light every 100 metres), made the journey longer than any expectation (in an hour you can't do more than 40 km!). We all went to dinner together, also with another Japanese friend, Abecian (the SUN), at a classic trattoria.

The day of 22/10/2004 was dedicated to the last of the vaccines they recommended for our trip... we waited until we got to Japan because here the cost was definitely lower than in Italy. On the other hand, we had an abundant breakfast that cost us as much as half a week in China! Heading then towards the centre of Kyoto, we witnessed a historical parade... a sort of costume re-enactment of the historical periods that characterised Japan from the Heian period to the Meiji period. It is one of the most important festivals held during the year... in fact everyone was busy, including old people and children, not disappointing the expectations of the large crowd that was watching them. In the evening we went to visit the Kodaij temple, completely illuminated with light effects throughout the immense garden...

super! But the most surprising thing of the whole day came in the evening; we tried the onsen. Calling it a wellness centre is definitely an understatement, but the result is more or less that. Of course, for a Japanese person it is not about vanity, but rather about the culture of one's body, a centuries-old tradition linked to Shintoism. The procedure for entering the onsen is quite particular: first of all, as Japanese ritual teaches, you take off your shoes; secondly, you undress completely (as mother made us) and enter a preliminary room reserved for cleaning one's body. Only once properly cleaned can you access the heart of the facility, made up of a lot of pools, each with different temperatures and colours, saunas and everything else you can imagine.

23/10/2004 was dedicated to Masaki's family and in particular to his little son Luca... an Italian name, not by chance; on our part it was an attempt at family globalisation aimed at finding out how these Japanese behave within the family!!! On Sunday, like good Italians deprived of the wonderful spectacle offered to us by football (that is, by the wonderful and more than ever beloved FC Internazionale), we replaced it with an event (Ciao Italia) dedicated to Italian cars, organised with the support of the Italian Consulate.

An exhibition dedicated to all the most famous and envied car brands made in Italy (Ferrari and Alfa Romeo), which sped around the racetrack and were then made available to the large public who could admire these jewels of style and design from us!!!! If you still haven't got it into your head, these Japanese are crazy about everything that comes from our BEAUTIFUL ITALY!!!!! ME COJONI!!!! (an expression suggested to us by a girl from Frosinone who studies here in Japan).

Yesterday, the last day with the professor, dedicated to visiting the city center of Osaka. Being Monday morning the city seemed half asleep, certainly not frenetic; our visit focused mainly on the pedestrian street dedicated to shopping and the one reserved for technological gizmos. After a long walk we arrived at Osaka Castle, which we admired from the outside, and finally we headed to the characteristic "underground city" that winds through the city's subterranean levels. This visit showed us a new face of Osaka, more active and closer to the stereotype of a Japan in constant motion.

Today was entirely dedicated to our last transfer toward Tokyo (total travel time 12 hours to save quite a few Yen) where Miwako was waiting for us with her husband Aki and little Kantaro. Welcomed by a sumptuous dinner, we were finally able to lie down on something that could be called a bed: a typical futon of the finest quality, and we were able to recover the hours of sleep lost during the previous excursion in southern Japan.