SAT 20 MAY 00

The Big Udon Goes Limp

The morning clouds are thick, dark, and spongy. The TV forecast is chirpy, colorful, and soggy. My long-awaited hopes for an outing around Mt. Ikoma must be postponed for yet another time. The umbrellas marching across the monitor tell me that I better stick moderately close to shelter. I savor a Starbucks and a cinnamon scone brought back from across the street while formulating an alternative.

Finally, it’s 11:00 and I’ve made my plans. I call GB and ask if he wants to join.

“Nno-o-o. I kinda wanted to go to this antique fair thing, ya-no?”

Yeah. I know. Have a good time. I’ll go it alone – see ya’, sucker!

So, off I go. Alone. Alone to explore the folds and seams of that great rice paper origami they call Osaka. Bring ‘em on, one and all – the cranes, the monkeys, the elephants – fold ‘em fast and furious! I’ll flatten all comers! I’ll cut all their corners! I’m the Great Udon and no adventure is too tough for me!

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Yodeling, I spring aboard the Yotsubashi Line. I’m Cap’n Karaoke, and I ride my songs to the Chuo Line. Like Popeye’s spinach, I whip out that trusty bowl of udon and tell that train to “Chuo on this, pal”! And lickety-spit – we’re at Cosmo Square.

And there, behold! But a mile away is the object of my quest – the Maritime Museum. The glass of the dome reflects the gray in the sky and the steel in the water. This alien craft needs exploring. I look for a bus to take me there. No such beast exists.

Typical, I think to myself. Only Osakan planners would put a major museum in a location where it would photograph well, but not be accessible. After all, if they made it easy to get to, a crowd might actually show up!

I hoof it to the place. But first, I double back on a false route, end up on an ended walkway, all while never seeing a sign pointing to the place. Mind you, this is now almost noon on a Saturday, and I’m the only person headed this way. And I’m not meeting anybody headed the other way either. When I get near the dome, there is a construction fence and a whole mess o’ dirt between it and the dome.

I go to the guard shack. The guard doesn’t speak English. I don’t speak Japanese. I point to the dome, form an “X” with my arms, and raise my brows enquiringly. The guard points to the dome, forms and “X” with his arms, and shakes his head from side to side.

I look. I sigh. I look again. I leave.

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How dare they! Who told me that it had “…just opened, or something”? Who? Who, but GB, my loyal friend, who chose not to come along. I hope there’s a rabid mongoose up his sleeve when he laughs into it. Hah! But the Big Udon does not accept defeat that easily. He has other plans. Other big plans. Plans that were conceived earlier over that tankard of Starbucks.

I double back to the ATC (the Asia & Pacific Trade Center). I cross over hedges, go in through a back door and up some stairs until I’m standing in the grand space. It looks like Osaka’s version of the Blue Whale is suffering from the same problems as the one in LA. Most of the lower floors are now a retail bazaar, with small shop owners selling all sorts of chachkas.

But my destination is the true artsy stuff up on the tenth floor. The elevator cab leaves me on a vacant walkway. The gallery I’m looking for is still there. It has a current exhibit, but it’s closed.

I look. I groan. I don’t bother looking again. I leave.

On my way out, I walk by the design library - which is open. A magazine catches my eye. Even here, in what I thought was a haven of design, bureaucracy and bean counting have planted their cancerous seeds. The magazine is FDM – also to be visited at http://www.fdmonline.com.

I need a cleansing of the palate. I get a cup of sweet potato gelato at the Crepe House in O’s North. This is just about the only place that has outdoor seats on the waterfront side. That’s where I head. I enjoy my treat in solitude. Everybody else is staying indoors with the heat and the hordes and the squawk-sonic songs blaring from the speakers.

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I continue south through O’s all the way to the end. Herein lies my third quest – the O’s South Museum. There’s a showing of French Impressionists – probably my favorite style other than plein aire and a number of individualists. I call up the elevator, get in, and press the B2 button.

Nothin’.

We ain’t goin’ nowhere today.

Like, as in closed – or somethin’.

I give up in disgust and head back for the train station. Here I see a poster that advertises the opening of the Maritime Museum as July 14. No wonder I couldn’t get into the glass dome. The GD SOBs, - especially that GB! I’ve been sent on a goose-chase! I’ve been made a fool! How dare they do this to the Great Udon?

It’s all their fault!

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Back on the Chuo Line, I get off at Awaza and head north on Amidaike-Suji Avenue. After about a kilometer I cross the Tosaborigawa onto the long island in the river. There looms the recently opened Osaka International Convention Center. Kurokawa, Epstein & Arup Consortium designed this thirteen-story cube of metal panels and trusses.

Not only was it recently opened, but it’s also open while I’m here.

The building has its points – for those that are into this kind of thing. The first two floors are mostly outdoor space – a stark windswept no-man’s-land. A lobby inhabits a glass curvilinear gesture to one side with a café filling the space above it. The third floor is a 2600 m2 clear span exhibit floor. At the moment, the hall is filled with recruiters for business opportunities for establishments such as 7-11, KFC, and a variety of domestic companies. They’re not sure what to make of me as I wander through looking at the detailing and overall effect of the space.

Floors five through nine are taken up by a 2754 seat concert hall. It has the flexibility for a variety of capacities and arrangements, but still preserves the acoustical assets of a shoebox configuration. However, given its size, it sacrifices by placing the rear balcony seating substantially away from the stage. I ask one of the event personnel in the lobby if it would be possible to look at the hall.

“Impossible”, he replies.

OK. And he’s starting to look like GB to me.

I go up a service elevator, which stops backstage. A J-Pop concert or a convention performance is caterwauling through the corridors to where I am. A security guard stands in the way of my entrance onstage. Yeah, impossible. Thanks, guys.

On up – the tenth floor is conference rooms, the twelfth is a conference room, the Grande Toque restaurant, the main Conference Hall and an abstracted rooftop garden. I check out the round and domed Conference Hall. It can comfortably hold 50 to 100 people in a conference configuration while ringed in its entirety by a multi-media booth.

Need I say it? – the roof garden was locked. So how many strikes is that?

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Back at the hotel, I get a call – can I join for dinner? It’s at SY’s apartment – so, maybe, just maybe, it may not be closed when I get there. I meet up with ML and we head out there. It’s gonna be a night out with the Vegans. Those antenna-like things are starting to sprout out above my temples. But it’s OK – only other Vegans can see them.

Remember, this is the land of octopus balls and fish eyes and you name it – ain’t no other Vegans around these parts, pahdner!

Dinner is great. It’s flavorful, filling and safe – I don’t have to worry about sudden “surprises”. It also has enough novelty to be stimulating. Gorged, we’re sitting around, talking, and admiring the view out the huge open window.

A slam of wind through the window declares the typhoon season officially open. The lights of Osaka disappear behind a roaring wall of rain and hail. Torches of lightning strobe the room while thunder shakes it like a two-bit vibrating mattress. Eventually, the storm dies down, time’s sand runs out, and we must take our leave.

Walking the small streets on the way back to the station, I’m looking at some stonework inside a building that we’re passing – instead of looking ahead. My right foot goes down into the gutter. I hop, flail, and windmill – only to accelerate my forward momentum. I go down flat.

And you think thunder shook the ground before!

My right arm is somewhat sprained, my right knee is banged up, but other than that, I tell myself that I’m OK. On we go to the station – with me limping.

Ahh-h – the sweet scent of defeat!

Turn me into a limpin’ lizard, will ya? Ahm gonna getcha fer this, GB!