The Eye of Patrick

The next day I would wake up early, as I wanted to get a jump on the day. This meant waking up at 8 am. I got dress and was out of the hotel by 9 am.

While I was walking to Namba station to pick up my camera I noticed a barber shop. This got me thinking about getting a haircut as my hair had grown fairly long by this point, as I had not gotten one done in the 3 months I have been here. So when I noticed the barber shop I decided to make the effort and get my haircut.

I went down the stairs and enter the barber shop. It was a small little shop with 3 chairs, nothing fancy just the basic minimum that you would find at any barber shop, except this one was in Japan. I said hello and he said sit down and he asked me what I wanted done. I explained that to him and he got cutting.

After he finished cutting, he asked if I wanted a shave. I thought about it for a moment, as I had never gotten a shave done in a barber shop. I had always wanted to get it done, but usually I had shaved myself before the haircut. But seeing I left my shaving kit in Hokakido and knowing I was going to my university that day to meet my friends I made sure to look my best.

The process to get shaved was as followed, first he lowered me back and I think he put gel on my face and then hot towels and then more gel and started cutting. It was a nice shave and he got places I couldn’t. The interesting one was he trimmed my ears, now it is not like I have much hair their anyways but it trimmed it away. So after I was finished being cut, I felt smooth like a baby and knew I was starting my day right.

The next thing for me to do was to go to the train station and get my camera. When I got there they told me that I had to wait an hour for my camera to arrive from the station that someone returned it to. Instead of waiting there, I decided to go to Mr. Donut and get some breakfast (not the healthiest breakfast I know) and something to drink. Plus I wanted to read my book by Haruki Murakami. He is a Japanese author that I have been reading lately, whenever I open his book I get so caught up in his world that when I check the time usually 30 minutes would have passed. I did that until 11 and made my way back to the train station.

I got my camera and was on my way to Kansai Gaidai. I took the Keihan line to Hirakatashi. The whole journey there was a surreal feeling as the last time I was on this train was two years ago and I was in school in Japan. So as I passed places I used to go to I felt memories flash back into my head, some of them good and some of them bad. In roughly 15 minutes I was there in Hirakatashi, my old town. (Not really town, I think it was 400,000 people, but you wouldn’t notice it was a separate city from Osaka do to all the development along the train line)

When I got to the gate of the university I had a sudden sense of panic as I worried they would not let me in, that they would say you can’t enter, only current students can. But I hide my fear and cross the threshold and entered the university. It was the same as when I was last there.

I made my way around the many booths set up selling food. One of the major things about the festival is that the many clubs or circles in the school sell some food. The club I used to be a member of, the golf team was selling Yakisoba. (Yakisoba is fried noodles with sauces and vegetables, kind of like a stir fry with noodles) so I made my way there to see my old friends and to get some good lunch. I casually walked up to the golf stand and pretended to be just another customer. But they noticed me and we started to catch up. It was amazing to see how much the club had changed since I left. Many of the members I knew had left or graduated from the team. So there were many new faces. I met them, but waited to meet the person I had meant to see.

I waited 30 minutes for her to come, she was super busy. Not only is she helping with the golf club selling stuff, but she was helping to run the festival, which is a major undertaken. This is not a amateur festival. My festival had the proper yakisoba cooking equipment and other clubs also had the stuff that you would find in a normal restaurant for the food they were selling. I only had 10 minutes to talk to her; she had grown up a lot since I last saw her. I think she will do really well in life because she seems a very strong personality and speaks excellent English. I will remain in contact with her for sure. I took some photos with the members and said good-bye.

The reason I could not spend more time with them was because I was meeting another friend. We became friends in Japanese class when I studied there. It is kind of funny also how we became friends. She was one of the Japanese students to come to my Japanese language class to give us an opportunity to speak with Japanese people. We were usually given a set group of questions to act as starting points for our conversation. So when my friend became my speaking partner one of the questions was “do you want to have lunch?” so when she asked me it I was not expecting to actually eat lunch but just have an opportunity to speak Japanese. But we talk more and more and when class ended she was like where do you want to eat, and it was at that point I realized we were actually going to eat lunch together.

So when I came back to Osaka, I made sure I would meet her. We met up and looked around at some of the events and took some photos of the place. Then it was out of there, as much as I liked my university, it was not the school that made my time in Japan the good memories it was. The good memories came from the stuff I did outside of the university.

So my friend and I decided to check out fushimi inari in Kyoto. It is the pictures to the right of the many tori’s. Usually when you go to a temple there will be 1 or 2 of them, but this place is just a long series of them. I think it has been in a large number of movies, such as last samurai and memories of a geisha (sayori). I had always wanted to go here, but I have never had the opportunity to go. So seeing I could not see the temples in Kyoto as a result of me losing my camera, I thought I would check out something new and I was not disappointed at all. It had that wow and amazement that comes with visiting something new for the first time. Each step I took was something new to see. I like the feeling as it is so hard to get, as once you saw something the magic of the first time is gone. Maybe that is why I don’t watch movies more then once usually.

After we went to the temple we headed to an izakaya and had some food. The whole izakaya experience has started to grow on me, at first I was not a fan of them. But now I like the concept of getting a drink with friends and trying a bunch of little food. So me and my friend sat at the izakaya and chatted for 4 hours or so. It was some of the happiest moments I have experienced since returning to Japan. I have met many people here and it is nice. But it is nice to sit down with someone you know and knows you. You don’t need to explain yourself; you can just talk and discuss things to deeper degree then new friends.

We both had to say good-bye as we wanted to make sure to not miss the last train, it was sad saying good-bye but at the same time it was nice to catch up with an old friend.