Sunday, May 31 I took the train from Tokyo to Osaka. I got another view of Mt. Fuji.
I was going to Osaka to do 4 weeks at a Japanese Language School called JaLS. I first attended JaLS in 2016 in Sapporo, and at that time, Sapporo was the only location. They have since expanded to locations in Kyoto, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Tokyo, and now Osaka. I attended the one in Fukuoka last year.
It is a highly rated school, and the only problem I ever had was with the accommodations they found for me. This year I found my own accommodation. Nowadays that's quite easy to do, even for long stays, with things like booking.com.
On Sunday I arrived in Osaka with quite a bit of time before I could check-in at the apartment, so I spent the time finding the location of the school. It's in a new development called Grand Green, just outside the Osaka Station.
The area around the Osaka station and the neighboring Umeda station is a bewildering complex of various ticket gates and passageways on several levels, all buried under an array of skyscraper department stores and hotels. I dragged my luggage around for a couple of hours in the heat and humidity before I finally found the Grand Green area, and the particular tower in which the school is located.
The Grand Green area is very new and nice looking, with the buildings surrounding a green space with a wading pool. I stopped there for a while to eat lunch. The school is on the 8th floor with a view of the park.
After lunch in the park, I started searching for the apartment, which turned to be relatively easy. It's at the end of a long shopping street. The street is full of loud restaurants and bars, but the apartment itself is about a block passed all that, so it is actually quite quiet.
I got an email with the code to the lock box with key, and let myself in. Its a new building, and the apartment has everything: stove, fridge, microwave, dishes, towels, etc.
On Monday morning I walked to the school. I knew the apartment would be about a half hour walk to the school, and I didn't think anything of it. However I didn't count on the heat and humidity, and I arrived at the school drenched in sweat. So embarassing.
The class itself was great, at just the right level, with only 5 students. A lot of the students were from Taiwan. I had the class in the morning and on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I had a private lesson that is mostly conversation practice.
In the evening on Monday I found a grocery store about a block from the apartment and bought some fruit and vegetables.
Tuesday afternoon, after class, was a school trip on an area in Osaka called Shinsekai, or New World. It dates to 1903, and there are cartoon-like statues every of a character called Billy-ken, which is actually modeled on the US president at the time.
Shinsekai is known for a food called kuchikatsu, which is battered, deep fried meat or veggies on a skewer. It is also full of arcade-type games.
We went as a group in a restaurant to eat kuchikatsu. Unfortunately it was raining that day so we didn't walk around very much.
On Wednesday morning I found a route to the school that used air-conditioned underground passages for about half of it, which helped somewhat with the heat.
I the evening I did laundry. There is a washing machine in the apartment, but no dryer. Instead there is something called a drying panel on the wall outside the door to the shower cubicle. I looked it up, and essentially you just hang your clothes in the shower cubicle, close the door, select 'dry' and a time on the panel, and the shower cubicle becomes a dryer. Very cool.
Thursday evening I found a craft beer place between the apartment and the school, called Craft Beer Market. Friday evening I went to the craft beer place that we went to before, downtown near Dotonburi.
Saturday, June 6, I did a day trip on my own to a temple complex about an hour from Osaka, south of Nara, called Hasedera. It dates to the 900's and it is mainly devoted to the Kannon Bodisattva. It is main temple for Shingon Buddhism.
From the Hasedera train station it is a 20 minute walk through a small town to the entrance to the temple area. Being Saturday, it was fairly busy with mostly Japanese tourists, and I just followed the crowd.
The temple complex is on the side of a steep hill, so there is a long staircase up to the Main Hall.
The main hall has an alter with a huge statue of Kannon. Walking around I found a side door that you had to pay to go into, and I did. It took you the inner room where the statue was, so you were right next to it. I didn't expect that, and it was kind of cool.
It is known for flowers according to the season, and in June there is a huge display of hydrangea.
After visiting the temple I walked back through the town, which was now in full swing with all the vendors selling local specialties.
I stood in a long line to buy a kind of mochi stuffed with red bean. The mochi was green because a plant called mugwort is added (at first I thought it was matcha but I asked someone and found out otherwise.)
I also bought a special kind of sushi, called kakinohasusi, which is wrapped in a persimmon leaf.
I took the train back to Osaka and stopped the craft beer place downtown.
