Osaka Sucks

July 25
Monday

I slept, defensively, dreaming about aliens and bedbugs. Checkout was at 11 and despite my hatred of the Hotel Kitahachi, my reluctance to explore Osaka was greater. My meeting didn’t start until 5:00 pm. I won’t subject you, gentle readers, to the long version of my rant on this. Suffice to say: 5:00 pm. Really? Come on.

So, by 11:00 am I needed to be dressed in a suit. Sightseeing in 95 degree heat was not on my list. I decided, though, that I would try to visit one place of interest. The Umeda Sky Building was reported to have stunning views of the city and interesting architecture. It was supposedly less than a 10-minute walk from my hotel. I checked my bags with the front desk. Again, with two maps and admittedly dodgy directions from the non-English speaking hotel manager, I set off through the streets of Osaka.

Within 10 minutes, I was fairly certain that I was circling the same area over and over. I made a fretful phone call to my friend, Jo, in New York. Thank god she was home. She listened sympathetically to my tearful rants about Osaka: the heat, the noise, the very bad maps, and the jostling. She agreed with my belief that bicycles should be outlawed and that Japanese toilets certainly were remarkably complicated. Best of all, she agreed that I should, indeed, go into the next Starbucks I saw and camp out as long as I could. She’s a good friend. I begged her to tell me something funny. She had a good story involving a hot neighbor with an electric saw.

So, Starbucks #4. Nothing much to tell. I sat there for about 90 minutes.

My meeting was in another area of town about 20 minutes away. I arrived there about 2 hours before my meeting. As luck would have it, there was Starbucks #5, conveniently situated across from my client’s building. 90 more minutes ticked by. At 4:30, I cleaned up, reapplied my long-gone make up and transferred myself to the lobby of the client’s building.

The meeting, at least, was successful. The clients were new for us so they were friendly, but distant. That I can handle. We made plans for a follow-up meeting, a good sign, and they joked with me that even though I had missed my first earthquake, I would arrive in Tokyo just in time for my first typhoon. Perhaps sensing my delicate emotional state, my colleague, a true gentleman, helped me retrieve my luggage from a coin locker in the station and practically put me on the train home. Back in Tokyo, the rain had started. I made my way, groggily, back to my apartment and into a hot shower. I vowed that I would leave Osaka behind me and start over in the morning.