December 16th, 2023

Day 13

Today is the day that I reserved for attending the Yakuza fair. Yakuza is the English name of the Japanese game, Ryu Ga Gotoku, that I’ve played since first learning Japanese. I think I didn’t go too deep into my love of the game when I introduced it during Day 1. I won’t bore you with the details of my love-hate relationship with the game, you can read it here. I originally was just going to write a few paragraphs about it here, but it spiraled on, so I removed it from the travel blog and started a separate blog post about it. Anyways.

My friend Flora, who is also a big Yakuza fan, told me about the event a few days ago, so I have cleared my entire day just to attend the event. I have no idea what is going to happen, but I know that the voice actor for Kiryu and Ichiban will be there at the event. It also will start at 10 AM, so I made sure that I arrived by 10 AM.

But before then, I had to move to a new hotel that I booked, and before that, I need to eat breakfast. This is what I bought from a Family mart that’s next to the inn. I did not ask for the fried chicken, but the staff member added it anyways and I was too nice to tell them to put the heated up chicken back into its closet, so I ate it anyways. It wasn’t bad.

Today is also a Saturday, which means that even bad hotels will double its price just for today. So, to avoid the high price of even bad hotels, I needed to move to a new hotel. This new hotel is kinda far away, but based on the review that I read on Ctrip, the new hotel is close to a subway station called the Kitahama Station, so I didn’t really care. If I could reach it by subway, it’s not that far at all.

Hotel name: Daiwa Roynet Hotel Osaka-Kitahama

Address: Chuo-ku Koraibashi 2-2-14

Price: 513.04 RMB (73 USD)

Verdict: ★★★★☆

Oh it was not close at all. It was not. The only way I can reach the hotel is by the Midosuji line, but Midosuji line does not stop at Kitahama Station. So yes, even though there is a subway station like 10 meters away from the hotel, I still walked for more than 10 minutes before I could reach it from a different subway station.

Once I dropped off my luggage, I went ahead to the Yakuza event. Can’t start from the Kitahama Station as the subway line there does not reach my destination, so I had to walk for another 10 minutes to reach the subway station that I exited from. Real funny.

Anyways, once I reached the Yakuza event building, I immediately grabbed this picture and sent it to Flora. She is very jealous that I got to attend the event while her trip to Japan is a month later. When I tried to enter through the dividers, I was stopped by a staff member who asked me if I had a “整理券”. It’s pronounced as “Sei-ri-ken”, and it means something like a ticket, where you get it in advance and come back at your allocated time. Unfortunately I did not know what this thing was, so I spent a few minutes browsing through the the game studio’s website to figure out what it means. When I deduced the meaning from the context, I asked the guy if I can get one now, and he said yes, but only at night time.

That’s when I got a ticket for 18:45, at night. It is a very popular game after all.

But I need to find something else to do for today, because I literally planned the entire day for this event.

There is another event going on that is adjacent to the Yakuza event. Didn’t know what it was, but it was filled with people, so I grabbed a picture anyways.

There’s also a Rolex store at the structure behind the dolls, so I went and paid a visit. Again, like on Day 10, they pretended to check the inventory, after asking me to wait for like 5 minutes, and then went on to say that nothing is in stock in the moment. Why the fuck did you go check inventory if there’s nothing in stock. But that thought didn’t come to me until much later.

So, after my previous business, I headed back to the subway station that was supposed to take me back to the Yakuza event. I waited till it was the time that Google Maps said the train would come; yet, the train didn’t come. People started to line up after me, and after another 10 minutes, the train still didn’t come. On the train information board, it said that the train was delayed due to some issues, and will come in the next 10 minutes.

So I waited another 10 minutes, and yes, the train did not come. That’s when I started to panic. I don’t know if the Yakuza event will still let me in if I was late. It takes 30 minutes of walking to get to the event, and I didn’t want to walk that far. So I waited another 10 minutes, and finally, I gave up, the train is never gonna come, and wanted to walk outside.

The thing is, I already paid for the fare by swiping my Apple Watch against the IC card pad, it’s not like the station will hand me back the cash. Knowing that situation, I lined up after hoards of people already lining up waiting to get a refund. While waiting, there was this stupid overweight woman, hell, it’s my blog, she fat and ugly. She cut in front of me. Up till this point, all the Japanese that I learned were nice stuff, stuff like thank you and good bye. I never learned how to set someone straight, so I didn’t say anything. When it was that stupid uggo’s turn, she told the station manager that she swiped in, and the manager told her to just swipe it against the machine again. I heard that, so I swiped as well and got on my way.

After a 30 minute walk, I finally reached the Yakuza event, and not to clap myself on the back, I was only a little bit late. It also rained, so double clap. When I got in, the hall was filled with people. It was filled with too many people, and it made me feel physically unwell. I don’t like when I am stuffed in a room with too many people. I’m weird that way.

I saw people were lining up for something, I didn’t know what they were lining up for; but I felt that I should line up as well. As I stood at the end of the line, the staff member who helped me in the morning came to me, recognized me, and told me that this line is for something that might or might not happen. I was like excuse me? Turns out, yes, the line really is there for people if they want to wait for something that might or might not happen. The lead voice actors might come out again, who knows; but I don’t like the odds. I’m not gonna wait for something that I know won’t be 100% certain, so I left the line and headed straight to the souvenir line. I already walked this far, I am going to leave with a souvenir.

The line at the souvenir stand is also filled with people, but at least here, the line is moving. When you are close to the stand, the staff member will hand you a clipboard with a order sheet that has all the merchandises they have in stock. None of these merchandises stuck my eye, except the Tojo clan and Majima clan lapel pins. I already bought something similar to these, but they were counterfeits made in China. I thought to myself that I should get the real ones, and so I did. The lapel pins are large AF, they really shouldn’t be called lapel pins. Even though I just bought two pins, the staff still gave me a large plastic bag to carry those two lapel pins. She said that there were no more small bags. Which is fine.

After I got my stuff, I just left. I didn’t stay for anything else, as I don’t like that much people in such a small hall. The photo up there was not representative of what was going on in the room. When I left the building, what a breath of fresh air. I mean that literally.

Today was pretty disappointing, but since I didn’t eat lunch, and breakfast was only convenience store food, I decided to get dinner. The Yakuza event was adjacent to a large shopping mall with 9 floors and multiple towers, so I decided to just get some food there. On the bulletin board, it shows all the restaurants that are inside the shopping mall. I wanted to try something that I haven’t had yet, and the Okonomiyaki caught my eye. It is on the 7th floor of the North Tower, so I headed straight to the restaurant.

Only, the shopping mall was too big, it took a while for me to finally reach the North Tower, and when I did, I forgot that it was the 7th floor, and it took me a while of searching on the 6th floor to realize that maybe I was on the wrong floor. When I checked the floor index, I successfully found the restaurant, and I sat at one of the tables. I made my orders quick, just two recommended and an Oolong tea. When I ordered Oolong tea, I expected something hot, because it was raining outside; but it was served with ice. I asked the waiter if they could heat it up for me, and the waiter seemed very confused, and had to ask the kitchen to see if they could heat it up. They did, but it didn’t taste good. Anyways.

The first dish that came was the Karaage, Japanese fried chicken. At first, I thought that you just squeeze the lemon on there and that’s it; but it was pretty much tasteless. That’s when I realized that there is a bottle of mayonnaise on the side that was designed for moments like this. After I dripped some mayonnaise on it, it tasted much better. Still, didn’t surprise me enough to warrant a grade that’s better than a pass.

Dish Verdict: ★★★☆☆

The second dish, the main dish, came after a while, and it wasn’t the Okonomiyaki that I expected. I’ve had Okonomiyaki before, but only in America, where it’s called “Hiroshima Okonomiyaki”. The birthplace of the Okonomiyaki is in Osaka, so I am basically having the most authentic one yet; but with the authentic one, they don’t add the soba noodles like they do with the Hiroshima version, which is kinda what I wanted to eat in the first place.

Without the Soba, it’s just wheat paste with Okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise. Still, it wasn’t bad, and I ate like half of the Okonomiyaki before calling it.

Dish Verdict: ★★★☆☆

Overall, the mood, the food, was not that exciting. This is just one of those restaurants that you’ll probably never come again.

Restaurant Verdict:

★★★☆☆

After dinner, I got back to my hotel. What a disappointing day. The Yakuza event in the morning was disappointing, the subway system was disappointing, the Yakuza event at night was disappointing, and dinner was disappointing. Still, got to do a lot of talking today, which is kinda the point of my whole Japan trip.

I have a few days left in Japan, and I have made up my mind to visit Toji, a special Buddhist temple that I did not get to visit when I went to Kyoto a few days back. Kyoto is only an hour away from Osaka, so I’ve decided to visit Kyoto once more.

So I booked the hotel at Kyoto, and went to sleep.

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