Jet Lag Jackhammer

Post by Grubb

Whoa…we left LAX Monday mid-afternoon and, after a twelve-hour flight, landed in Osaka in the early evening on the next day.  My body was prepared for an early morning stretch and now it was dazedly doing nighttime maneuvers negotiating a very large airport terminal where a very large crowd was lined up for the passport entry stations in a folded file.  It was like watching passengers move through a large intestine afflicted with constipation.

At passport entry we had to scan a barcode downloaded on our phones, have fingerprints taken, along with a photo, and, oh yes, show our passports.  At customs, a couple of hallways further, we had to do the barcode thing again along with photos and a passport scan.  I felt like I was lost in a recurring dream.

We used a map to find the tiny nook that had a couple ATMs, then Ella figured out how to locate the correct bus that would take us into downtown Osaka.  The driver got a little jumpy—I heard him stand up and make excited noises behind me—when I went directly to some seats to put my pack down before digging out my cell phone to find the SUICA card in my Apple wallet to pay for the hour long ride.  The highway seemed to loop over one endless bridge with blinking red road work signs set up like mini miniature pagoda shrines blocking the left lane.

We were dropped off at the Osaka train station.  In getting off the bus my first takeaway was that the Japanese like their cities ablaze with light.  Paris looks dark in comparison.  The nearby streets did not appear to be laid out in a grid.  And there were people busily unbothered by the fact.  It was jarring.  I felt like I needed sunglasses.

Ella guided us down a small street that led us to a blindingly bright indoor mall that seemed to go on forever and had us exit on another small street that was awash in colorful neon signage gleaming away with scratchy incomprehensible ideograms advertising restaurants and bars.  Popular hood.  A lot of young folk (relatively speaking) and packs of Japanese men in suits hanging out waiting for rides or figuring out what night spot to invade.

We took a turn down another tiny street squeezed between the neon and found our hotel rising out of the chaos on a plaza that had a massive polished steel sculpture, some kind of signature logo marking the thirty story building that held a hotel, entertainment center, and numerous eateries along with boutique stores.  We had to take an escalator to the second floor to find the check-in desk.  The bellhop took us to the 28th floor.  We have a great view of an expansive river winding through a logo-land of high-rises.

It was around nine-thirty, but the jet-lag was a knockout punch and we were asleep before ten.