SAT 10 JUL 99

Wipeout at the Big Udon

A bout of indecisiveness has been playing hot potato with my morning start. It’s Saturday and I’m free! Free, that is, to make decisions, commitments. Free to take one branch down a diverging road, never to return again. Free to shackle myself to an unknowable future.

Sounds like life to me.

I get over it, get my butt in gear, and get on a JR train to Noda. This district was named for the fatalistic Russians that settled there. This morning I feel it’s my spiritual home.

I head south from the station, weaving my way through narrow residential streets dotted with family businesses. What wheeled traffic there is, is almost exclusively bicycles. The riders are mostly housewives, bringing groceries home, or on their way out to do so. There are parents out with their kids teaching them how to ride a bike, how to play, how to grow up. There’s a grizzled geezer volubly collecting morning-after mucus in his throat and spitting it out on the pavement. The Akita he has on a leash partly mimics his activities, except with a rear leg in the air.

Eventually I reach my quarry—the Central Wholesale Market. This thing’s big—it’s bigger than JR Umeda station, plus it’s three stories high—all negotiable by trucks. I’m standing at the west end, where trucks are pulling in and out, and going up and down ramps to the other floors. To my right, the market ends at the waterfront of the Ajikawa River.

It’s 10:30 AM. It’s 90 degrees. The sun is beating its way down through the humid air. The area is saturated with the smell of decomposing fish. The odor makes a gag wall that even I’m not willing to penetrate. I turn back to the station. Mother Nature tells me that I have some unfinished business.

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Last night, hours after the Thai Kareoke extravaganza, I was looking for some papers in my carry-bag. I encountered two pastries that I had bought a couple of days earlier. One was sweet without filling or frosting. The other was a savory with corn. A hunger reflex made me eat them—knowing as I did, that they had sat for a couple of hot summer nights in the construction trailer.

Having returned to the Udon Hilton, I’m now paying the price of my carelessness. On the other hand, I’m losing a lot of weight. I’m happy that I had the foresight to bring Desitin on this trip. I’m happier still, that I don’t need to use it.

Once I stabilize, I decide to go to lunch. I had skipped breakfast, so I was hungry. I play it safe and stay in the hotel. I go up to the Windows on the World on the 36^th floor. They have a lunch buffet that is reasonably respectable. Because this is in the shadow of the 4^th of July, and they have a guest American chef, there is an American food station as well as a salad station, a Chinese station (mostly dim sum), and a Japanese station.

The dessert table is geared more towards Japanese tastes—lighter, less sweet, and little in the way of chocolate. The real dessert is the expanse of Osaka below.

Afterwards, events prove that eating in at the hotel was a good decision.

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I feel the need to get out, but again, I choose to stay close to the hotel. I decide to explore even further nooks and crannies of the labyrinth that lies below the heart of Umeda. At its core is the Diamor underground shopping plaza. This in turn is connected to other subterranean shopping areas. To the north is the Gare (under the JR station), Hankyu Sambangai is to the northeast, Whity Umeda to the east, Do-Chika to the south, and Herbis Plaza to the west. Whether traversed from north to south or east to west, it tunnels below the streets for almost a mile.

As a pianist and audiophile, my brother had encountered someone that wanted to sell their laser disc player for $100. He bought it on a whim and got their entire collection consisting of one disc of pop. He had asked me to look for some classical recordings. I find several used CD and LP stores under the Osaka Ekimae buildings that flank the boulevard just south of the Hilton—National Highway Route 1. Several shops have just the kind of material he wanted.

My curiosity draws me upwards. On the second floor of Building No. 2, I find what is probably the premier store for classical sheet music in Osaka. It may be only half as large as Patelson’s in New York; but then again, the number of people interested in playing classical music in Osaka is probably less that in New York. The fact that my wife, son, and daughter-in-law are all classical musicians should put me in the cat’s seat as supplier of Japanese editions.

This particular floor yields some other unusual shops. Right across the hall from the music store is a shop for N-scale model railroaders. Near the center of the building is a sales and display room for Roland pianos—one of the top makers of electronic keyboards. Across from them is a store for collectors of coins and currency. Still another caters to philatelists. Especially nice is a supplier for ink painters and calligraphers. Here can be found ink sticks, grinding blocks, papers, bamboo handled brushes, and more.

The rest of the floor is given over to medical clinics and doctor’s offices. For those confused about which limb is used to hold a brush, there’s a podiatrist next door to the calligraphy shop. Judging from the diagrams outside, this guy may be one of those pin-poking, wholly holistic, types. I can’t read Japanese, but the nameplate seems like it says Sakatu-em & Howe.

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I return to the hotel. My body tells me “sleep”, but my mind says “way too early”. Matter wins over mind. I wake up around 7:00, a bit groggy, but rested.

I step outside. The temperature is cooler plus there’s a breeze. This is nicer than it’s been during this trip to Japan. Much as I’d like to wander about, I’m still too wiped from my earlier ailment. I walk two blocks south and turn east into the Kita-Schinchi area. There is that gourmet emporium better known as Lawson’s—Japan’s answer to 7-11. And no, white-bearded Americans wearing Uncle Sam suits and top hats do not staff them.

I get what I need to replenish what I lost (it’s virtually the same stuff), head back to the hotel, chow down and crash. End of story.