TUE 20 JUL 99

Holiday in the Big Udon

Due to the holiday*, trains are only half full. Walk to office in heat and sun. I get in at 8:00. I have office all to myself. Fix coffee. Work in silence.

At lunch have bag of Trader Joe’s blue corn tortilla chips and a jar of TJ’s salsa with black beans and corn. For a while I almost forget where I am. I knock down a near beer. (It was nearby.)

I’m so enthused, I plow thru the remaining stack of Sekozus, answer all my email, and work on items on my To-Do list until everything is in somebody else’s court.

Since I worked thru lunch, at 4:30 I head back to hotel.

- - - - - - - - -———¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥——— - - - - - - - - -

Chris, Mike and I go to Osaka Ekimae No. 2 Building to have dinner at the beer garden. Usually, there is a staffed elevator and ample signage to direct customers. There appears to be none. Step outside, and realize that I have the wrong building. We go next door to Edimae No. 1 Building. Sure enough, all of the proper cues are in place except that there is no elevator operator.

When we get to the top, all of the lights are out, and the doors to the roof are locked. They are closed for the holiday. We go back down to the “catacombs of Osaka” and weave our way to the basement of the Osaka Ekimae No. 4 Building. Here the elevators are staffed and the lights on the roof appear to be on.

The elevator operator tries to tell us something before heading up. We can’t make it out. So we start heading up, and finally he gets through to us that because of the holiday, the garden will close at 8:15. He tells us if we eat, we have to hurry since it is now 7:45. So, we decline and head back down. I suspect that he took one gander at Mike and me, and figured that they would lose less money if they could turn us around.

- - - - - - - - -———¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥——— - - - - - - - - -

We hop into a cab and head down to the Shinsaibashi area to my favorite – Garlic & Garlic.

Garlic croquettes

Eggplant, Miso & Garlic

Chicken Mozzarella Cheese

Garlic Spaghetti

Kimuchi Spaghetti

Potato Gratin

On to the Dubliners’ Irish Pub, Osaka

1-13 Soemon-cho Chuo-ku Osaka

06 212-7036

Guinness

Kilkenny

* Ocean Day. The day when all of Japan feels compelled to visit the ocean. The only day of the year where it is impossible to find an unoccupied grain of sand. The weather is irrelevant. They flock to the sea en masse. Editor