JOIN USOsaka, the erstwhile capital of Japan, is a melting pot of traditional and modern. From its samurai and temples to fast trains and eateries, the city leaves Preeti Verma Lal wide-eyed with wonder
“Run. It is 9.25. The Bullet train will leave in two minutes…Run…” At Tokyo’s Shingawa railway station, Kyoko, the Japanese guide, hollered. Amidst dainty women in kimono, men in drainpipes, the staccato of heeled boots and the hiss of silver trains, I ran as if I were quicksilver.
The raspy announcements were distracting, the escalator a tad tardy, and the clock hurried. Lugging my colossal camera bag and a suitcase stuffed with woollens, I edged, jostled, elbowed, and hastened through the platform towards the train with a flat snout. A minute to go. I sprinted. One step on the footboard and the engine stuttered a start. I was on the Shinkansen N700 Series train to Osaka. The clock struck 9.27 am and the train chugged. Call it Japanese clockwork precision. I stood breathless. In awe of punctuality.
In Osaka, Japan’s first capital, I should have been gluttonous. Greedy. Unmindful of the calories that come packed in the oh!so Osaka must-eats like okonomi-yaki (thick pancake), tako-yaki (octopus dumplings), green tea and kushikatsu (deep-fried cutlets). Honestly, I was famished.
But my heart was pining for Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the valiant general, the plucky warrior, and the territorial lord. I had heard stories of his valour, of he being Japan’s second biggest unifier, the shogun who built the Osaka Castle. I forgot hunger, I first had to see the samurai that I so revered.
Of shoguns & samurais
Osaka was resplendent in the spring morning and the cherry boughs were laden with buds ready to bloom. Even before I entered the castle, sprawled over 15 acres, I noticed the large moat skirting the castle.
A gigantic watch tower has its back turned to the street. Hideyoshi was not there. The great samurai has been dead for 415 years. But I huffed up the steep incline towards the main tower. I almost heard the great samurai coaxing his men to bear arms and follow the way of the warrior. After all, all samurais are destined to be that. A brave warrior.
The green-tiled roof is laced with gold edges, the staircase is made of stone and the elevator takes visitors up to the fifth floor. You walk up to the eighth floor for a bird’s eye view of Osaka. The crowd was milling and the iron mesh a hindrance to the spectacular view. Faraway, I could see a garden of pink plum blossoms, the river Yodo meandering lazily, and the city which was Japan’s first capital. In the exhibit halls are samurai armour, katana swors, calligraphed manuscripts, handpainted screens and a battle scene with brilliantly crafted miniature samurais.
Hideyoshi was not there in the Osaka Castle. No other samurai either. Just a frail man dressed as a samurai happily posing with enthusiastic travellers. He was so unlike the brave shogun.
How I wish Hideyoshi was there. Sigh! Osaka, Japan’s third largest city, was waiting. Historically, it has been Japan’s commercial centre. Today, it has an unusual tag: a city with a more-than-a-million less population at night. At daytime, Osaka’s population is 3.7 million; nighttime, it is 2.6 million. No, the men do not vanish at night. After work, they go back home. Outside Osaka.
That day in Osaka, I was one of the 3.7 million. Walking the streets flanked by cherry and plum trees. The modern skyscrapers raising their heads over puny old-style homes and pagodas. Women in kimonos looking discordant in a sea of young pretty-somethings hurrying in six-inch heels, straight hair, rouged cheeks and tiny dresses. I, however, was not counting human heads. I was caught in the made in Osaka ‘firsts’ — instant noodles (1958), cup noodles (1971), Jintan breath freshener (1905), railway terminal department store (1929), calculator (1964), automated ticket vending machine (1954)...
Palate pleasers
Osaka is a foodie’s delight and a shopaholic’s dream. However, I had to say a prayer, first at Shitenno-ji, Japan’s first Buddhist temple and the oldest officially administered temple. Built by Prince Shotoku in 593, the temple, also known as Arahaka-ji, Nanba-ji, Mitsu-ji, has a five-storey pagoda, a central Golden Pavilion and several gates. What stands today as homage to the divine Shitenno is not the original structure.
Over the centuries, it has been rebuilt several times as the closest approximation to the original. What stays true to the description of paradise by Amida Buddha is the Gokurako-jado Garden where turtles gambol in the pond and trees bend as if in typical Japanese humility.
With the shogun and a deity ticked done on the must-do list, it was time to head to Dotonbori, where a million neon lights glimmer and a million eateries serve a million different things. All tempting. All sinful. All laden with stories of Osaka’s ‘nation’s kitchen’ sobriquet.
All working towards one food rule: kuidaore (eat until you drop dead). Jostling in the crowd of a hungry million, I held on to the kuidaore mantra and the holy triumvirate of clichéd Osaka must-eat fast food: okonomiyaki (thick pancakes, made with yam flour batter, pork and seafood, slathered generously with barbecue sauce and mayonnaise); tako yaki (octopus dumplings); and kushikatsu (deep-fried pork cutlets).
I thought I’d begin with okonomiyaki and then get on to ‘dropping dead’ with tako yaki and kushikatsu. Boy! Did I know that one okonomiyaki would be so big as to feed a squat hungry town? The pancake was thick and scrumptious, its sauce the colour of mahogany. I managed two slices. And surrendered. In the nation’s kitchen, I rued my small stomach. Perhaps, I could borrow one from a samurai. In Osaka, that seemed like a brave thought!