Yesterday, Steve and I got it in our heads that we needed to head out to Umeda to visit Hello Work, the English-speaking labor office. After talking to Anna, who’d been keeping us informed, we eventually came to the conclusion that since she was pretty much relaying what Hello Work had told her, it would probably be all right if we didn’t end up going to hear the same thing over again. (Perhaps this was folly on our part, perhaps not. Tomorrow is supposed to be some big telling day, so I guess we’ll find out.)
Since we’d made plans to visit Umeda, we didn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t still go. I mean, come on people Umeda is where the pretty, pretty books live, and we all know how I’m a book-whore. (I believe that hyphening is not required, but is still sufficient in it usage.) I was also in contact with Anna so I got it in my head that we should all do something together in the north part of Osaka.
Steve and I wandered around Kinokuniya for a bit; with the release of Beowulf coming soon (and with all this time on my hands) I had it in my head that I should try and find the dual-translation copy I’d seen there before. To my misfortune, it was out. Some other time then, me thinks.
We went to meet Mike and Anna at Yodabashi Camera and decided we should get something to eat. We went up to the 8th floor of Yodabashi to look around the restaurant floor. It turned out that Mike and Anna had already eaten, so Steve and I settled on kontatsu ramen at this random place. For the record, spicy ramen and Kinryuu ramen are far better ramen places that where the hell we ended up. Since it wasn’t enough to just eat lunch, we went down to Excelsior Coffee; and again, this place does not compare to Seattle’s Best or Starbuck’s. What did we learn about Umeda from this kids? Aside from the pretty, pretty books and the dead animal (at Outback), it really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
While we were drinking coffee, we got to talking about the amazing roast that Anna makes. I mentioned how I hoped to try some again, and she said if I bought the roast, she’d cook it. When it was first mentioned, it was more of a passing thing, but the more we talked about it, the more we decided to have an impromptu dinner party. Steve and I were in charge of going to Costco (since we were in Umeda, we figured it would work), while Mike and Anna finished their errands and went home to Bentencho to clean house.
The trek out to Amagasaki was quite easy, and we managed to catch the charter bus on time as well. We selected a pretty big haunch of beef, or as Mike put it “big slab beef” (as the kanji read), purchased our dinner and walked back to the bus stop. As we sat on the benches, Steve realized he didn’t have his wallet on him. He knew he didn’t take it out or anything of the sort while we were in Costco, so we figured that it must be in Umeda somewhere. Not that this was overly comforting news, but at least we ruled out Costco. I remembered he had pulled it out to pay for ramen, so we at least knew he had had it at lunch. There had been really only two places we’d gone, so in my head it wouldn’t be that hard to retrace our steps. Steve went looking through his things again, and as he did so, the bus stop attendant guy came and spoke to us. Steve translated that he must have dropped his wallet either on the bus, or near the bus stop, and that the attendant fellow took the wallet to Information inside the CarreFour Mall. He tried to convey to us where it was, but all we could understand was 2nd Floor. At this point, one of the other shoppers spoke up and gestured for us to follow her. The bus was to leave at 4:45 PM, we were setting off to the Information area at 4:40. T minus five minutes. And go!
For a little old lady, she was actually kinda hard to keep up with! Steve and I once again experienced a Japanese-moment. A lot of people will disparage the country and its people, and I’m not naive enough to say that there are things that are perfect about this country, but the kindness and willingness to help (when you catch the right situations) is something we don’t get a lot in our home countries. At least, not to my own memory. If this had happened in Chicago, I can’t help but wonder if the same kind of person would be around to take time to physically take us to the place we needed to go. Steve said if this had been Glasgow, his wallet would be as good as never seen again.
We booked it to the Information table, thanked the little old lady profusely, and retrieved the dropped wallet. Steve had to sign a little book thing, and then he and I raced back to the bus stop. Time check - 4:44. Run like hell.
Ironically, the bus was late. So it all worked out rather well for us. The bus stop attendant smiled at Steve, shook his hand, and said he’d recognized Steve from his gaijin card.
We arrived at JR Amagasaki Station right in time to catch a train back to Osaka. From there, we caught the number 88 bus to Minami Ichioka (the stop near Mike and Anna’s pad) just as we’d arrived at the bus station. We were making excellent timing in catching transportation.
Unfortunately for us, we were unaware of how long it took from Umeda to Minami Ichioka. From Namba, it’s all of fifteen minutes; not so from Umeda — it seemed more like 40 mins. We conjectured (nice ol’ fashioned word) that we might have been better off catching the subway back to Namba first since it was rush hour and the Midosuji comes like every five seconds at that time of day. (Oh well, something to remember for next time.)
It was near 6:00 by the time we made it to Mike and Anna’s. Anna got to preparing things while the boys were doing something British involving the Internet and copious amounts of laughter. I got to peel potatoes and help mash ‘em, although, I was good at neither tasks. (Still, I got to peel potatoes and mash help mash ‘em! Woo!)
Anna had asked if we wanted to eat and watch something, or just have a sit-down meal. I had been quick to chime in with “sit-down” since I wanted to try and act my age for a night. It was closer to 7:30 by the time everything was ready. Katrina had joined us by this time and we all sat down to a grown-up dinner. There was the roast beef, mashed potatoes (obviously), caramelized onions, butter-rice, steamed vegetables, bread, salad, Coke, an apple, grape, and strawberry “desert” juice, and cheesecake (three different types — I had the Belgian chocolate…soooooo goooood….!) for dessert. It was one helluva spread. We praised Anna’s cooking and enjoyed the music Mike put on; our conversation naturally flirted with our work conditions but did not dominate the whole of it. We talked about our fleeing friends, how nice the wedding was, how bad the weather’s been with the rain, our plans for Thanksgiving dinner, general things like that. I was reminded of the dinners we used to have at Chris and Mark’s.
Anna, Katrina, and I ate our dessert at the table while Steve and Mike went into the other room to watch Army of Darkness. There was something amusing to me about that situation. Anyway, Anna showed us the finished pictures from the wedding; Rob had shown me them as he worked on them, but now I got the chance to see the finished product. They were really cool.
We laughed, we ate, we talked…it was a really nice dinner party.
Sounded like fun. And I read that NOVA has managed to sell about 30, maybe even as many as 200, of it’s schools to another language school. Hope it works out for all the teachers and students.