No One Died

You can’t call it a death march if no one dies. That being said, with Chrissy back in the states, I have taken a couple of excursions that I knew she would not want to participate in. Saturday, after my warm loaf of bread for brunch, I took off for Namba. Riding the rails alone is a very isolating feeling. I think it is when that many people going the same direction, as I am, that I feel the most alone. Once I was in Umeda, I made the usual switch to the Midosudji Subway line. Namba is four stops south of the Umeda station and it takes about 15 minutes to get there.

In Namba, I went directly to the barbershop. This particular shop is connected to the subway station. It is on the first level of the basement in the stairway down to the station. The system is you pay 1000 yen into a machine and get a receipt, and then you sit in line. There are four chairs with barbers at each. There is no cashier and no tipping. As soon as one man has his haircut and the station is swept, the next man gets in the chair and everyone slides over one seat. I was fifth in line. My ticket was stamped 11:34. I had my hair cut before noon and was back in the sunshine.

In the times we have been to Namba before, we usually walk down the Shinshiabashi shopping street. It is always very crowded so I avoided it and walked north on the main road toward the Mac store. I stopped at one store on the way, a ten-story sporting goods store. I had to explore it and also I had to find some water repellent spray for my coats. Friday I was soaked. I found the spray on the 10th floor in the camping section. Each floor is dedicated to a different type of sport.

At the Mac store, I played with the new I-pod, but I didn’t have the 48800-yen or the authorization to buy it, so I left it. The photo I posted on the previous blog is not actually of me. It is a picture of the store though, and I was standing right across the table from the person pictured in the photo.

I had one more stop before I headed back to the Umeda station. I wanted to explore a home store called Tokyu Hands. It is also 10 stories with different products on each floor. It is now one of my favorite stores.

When I left the Tokyu Hands store I returned to the Shinshiabashi shopping street. Up until Saturday I had walked the length of the street from Namba to this point but no further. This time I finished the walk. Shinshiabashi must be over two miles long. It is really an old road with shops on each side. They have covered the street so it is really an outdoor mall. They do have some interesting shops, but not too many that I am interested in. I had to see the rest of it however. The street ended and I returned to my walk on the main drag through town.

The street is very wide, it is a one-way street heading south; it is lined by high rises and suit shops. I have never seen it on the map, but I had a rough idea that it would dump me close to the Umeda station. I kept a pretty good pace going, and it took me just about an hour after the Tokyu Hands store to find some landmarks that I knew. The street is the same street that the American Consulate is on. Long before I could even see the consulate, I could hear it. As I got close, I saw why. There was a lone man in a van circling in front of the consulate; on the top of his van he had eight megaphones. He was protesting the United States for something. I only recognized the word ‘America,’ which he said almost every other word. I took a photo of the Japanese police presence in front of the closed consulate.

From Umeda to Nishinomiya Kitaguchi station is about fifteen minutes on the rapid express. The trains and subway were crowded. There weren’t any empty chairs and I stood for the ride. At Nishinomiya, it seems everyone exits the train. You become one of the crowd migrating up the stairs to exit the station. Once again, on the stairs it hit me how far away I am from my family and friends.