December 18th, 2023

Day 15

Today, I planned on roaming around Osaka and do some Rolex shopping for my brother in law. First up, breakfast.

Bought this at the Lawson store near my hotel. It wasn’t bad, it was just, not enough to fill my stomach. I eat a lot at breakfast.

After breakfast, I cleaned up, grabbed all my stuff, and headed back to Osaka. I booked my next hotel because it was described as “close to the subway station”.

Hotel name: DEL style Osaka Shin Umeda by ROYNET

Address: Fukushima 6-16-1

Price: 478.21 RMB (68 USD) [Breakfast Included]

Verdict: ★★★☆☆

It was not close to Namba Station at all. It was far away. I needed to walk for 15 minutes before I could even get my foot onto Namba Station itself. After the horrifying 15 minute walk that got me to the hotel, I dropped off my stuff, and experienced the thing again where once the hotel staff looked at my passport, they start to speak English to me.

It’s not that it’s not nice when they try their best when speaking English, it is just frustrating that this is exactly the reason why I learned Japanese in the first place, so they don’t need to use their English with me. I just told him that I speak Japanese and that was it.

It was another 15 minutes before I could walk back to the train station. This is a picture of a Santa Claus doll hung on a construction site that’s right across the street from the station, which looked quite cute. I took a picture and posted it as a story on instagram, and my friend Flora focused on the Kanji that’s written underneath the Santa Claus. It reads 大林組, or Obayashi Kumi. Obayashi is a kind of last name, while the Kumi part means that it is an organization. Kumi is often used by Japanese gangs, notably used by 山口組, Yamaguchi Kumi, or “Ya-ku-za”. Flora asked that if Obayashi Kumi is also an organized crime family, to which I really don’t know; but I have seen time and time that Kumi being used by construction companies. I have also read that as the Japanese government reins in on the Yakuzas, the gangsters needed another source of revenue, so many of them turned into construction companies. This is also shown in the Yakuza games, as Majima’s crime family turned into a construction company.

That’s a nice little tangent, but up next, is something I will remember for life; not as something I wish to remember, but as something that I hated so much that I wanted to burn down everything related to it. I won’t bore you with the details, I’ll just report the results. I went to 5 different Rolex stores in total, with 7 visits in total. Four out of five stores all had the same routine: me telling them what I am interested in, they went behind the scenes to “check”, and after some waiting time, they come back and telling me that what I want is not in stock, and when I asked them what is in stock, they told me that nothing is in stock. Only one store told me that there is something in stock, and it is a 15,000,000 Yen ladies’ watch laced with diamonds.

So yes, how do I know that this is a routine? Well, they all used the same way of talking and the same way of sending me off. What a bunch of fucking bastards. Why don’t you just tell me that nothing is in stock and I’ll be on my way? Why waste your time, and most importantly, why waste my time, which is much more precious than your petty little time, when you don’t want to sell it to me in the first place?

I read a few reviews online, and some said that it’s because they don’t sell it to foreigners, but I doubt it’s that. I think the main reason is that I don’t look like someone who is a potential customer of Rolex watches. I look like a student, let’s face it, and with one look, people can say that I am one of those scalpers that will sell these watches for far more than what I got it for in the grey markets. I don’t blame them for that, what I am angry for is that they still wasted my time to pretend that they had something in stock just to fuck with me. What a bunch of fucking losers.

It’s not that they have nothing in stock. Rolex produces about a million watches a year, so all that rarity is completely artificial. After my brother in law told me about the actual routine of getting a Rolex watch, it became clear to me — they really just wanted to fuck with me.

You first need to build a connection with the particular salesperson, tell them your story, why you want one, and they will decide if they want to sell it to you. They have everything in stock, and they will get everyone’s salary by selling a watch a week. They don’t need to be in a rush, because they need to build a brand, a brand that’s based on artificial rarity.

This is what enrages me. They fucked with the wrong person. Assholes.

Rolex stores were a bust, so I went back to the Parco department store near Shinsaibashi to buy some Ultraman souvenir for both my nephew and for myself. By then, I have already decided that I would be going back to China on the 20th. I don’t remember when I purchased the ticket, but it couldn’t be earlier than today; so I must do all the shopping today.

So, with the anger that the idiotic Rolex store clerks gave me, I arrived by the Ultraman M78 store. It was the same girl staff that helped me checkout on Day 10. She recognized me, and for that day, she was the only staff in store, and I was the only customer, so we had some decent convo. I told her that I am from China/America, and how Ultraman changed my life blah blah blah, and how my nephew loves Ultraman as well. I also shared with her my frustrating and yes, failed crusade of trying to buy a Rolex. I told her their routine and how it makes me angry, and she asked me to wait, ran to the counter, and ran back with the store iPad.

She actually used the store iPad to look up Rolex stores for me and was like did you go to this one, did you go to this one, maybe they have it here. I’ve been to all of the stores near by, but I was touched by how she was willing to search it up for me using the store iPad. She is so nice. People working at the Ultraman store must have the same big heart as Ultraman himself.

But yeah, after chatting with her, I loaded up a shopping basket full of souvenirs for both myself and for my nephew. For me, I got myself a red Ultraman tie, a pair of Ultraman Tiga chopsticks, and an Ultraman tie clip. For my nephew, I bought him a ceramic bowl and two ceramic plates. One of the ceramic plates broke to a million pieces when I took them out of the bag to inspect them after I got back home in China, but that’s probably because of the fact that I dropped the entire bag onto the airport floor a few days later. At the Ultraman store, though, the store clerks purposefully open the box and let you check it out yourself.

Bought a lot of stuff, and it was past lunch time, so I’ve decided to just get some food at the department store. Last time, I had the deep fried pork cutlets at the same building; this time, I’ll have some food at the same building as well.

When I got to the top floor, there were many food options, and I started to walk around. Finally, I set my eyes on a Japanese sushi place that looked promising and wasn’t too expensive. I got in, was lead to a counter seat that’s sits right in front of an aquarium that has abalone in it, which brought some unpleasant memories that I had with that one abalone at the Kobe Teppanyaki place on Day 3. I ordered a set, and it didn’t take long for the food to arrive.

The first food item to arrive is a platter in a bamboo basket. It has an assortment of sashimi, Japanese side dishes, and a rolled up sushi. It didn’t taste out of the ordinary, which is good in this case. If it tasted out of the ordinary, then I would doubt that this place doesn’t serve its raw food fresh. It didn’t surprise me, but it also didn’t make me disappointed.

Dish Verdict: ★★★★☆

The next dish is the Chawanmushi, or steamed egg paste. I’ve had it plenty of times here in Japan before, for example, at the Kani Doraku on Day 2 and at the Morizuya Ryokan on Day 4. The Chawanmushi I had today is similar to the one I had at Kani Doraku, as there is some dense soup on top of the normal egg paste. Again, it didn’t surprise me, but it wasn’t bad either.

Dish Verdict: ★★★★☆

Up next, vegetable tempura. This one did surprise me, because I’ve never had deep fried egg plants before. I don’t remember the taste, which must mean that it didn’t leave a strong impression on me; but that’s still some weird combination for Tempura that I’ve never had before. This was a fun, surprising dish.

Dish Verdict: ★★★★☆

After I was done with the basket, a waitress came up to me and asked for what kind of soup I want, something white and something red. I didn’t know what those were, so I just asked for the most popular one, and she recommended the red one. This is the red one. It’s just miso soup, but since it’s redder, I guess that’s why they called it something red. It’s just miso soup, though.

Dish Verdict: ★★★★☆

Lastly, it was a sushi platter, albeit it’s a very tiny sushi platter with only 4 sushis on a stone plate. It tasted okay, so I wasn’t too impressed.

Dish Verdict: ★★★☆☆

Overall, this restaurant is just, that, a normal restaurant. Didn’t surprise me, food didn’t taste weird, so it gets a pass from me. I would recommend it to people who just want some normal Japanese food that is served in a basket. Lol.

Restaurant Verdict:

★★★★☆

After I got to the hotel and grabbed my stuff, I went into my hotel room. Holy fuck the smell of cigarettes was so fucking bad. I feel like I would come out smelling like smoked salmon by staying there for one night. This hotel purported to be a fancy hotel, yet, it smelled like shit. After I got back to China and posted a review saying that this hotel had rooms that smelled bad, the hotel replied that I booked a smoking room. I’m not sure that I did, but that’s not the excuse for the room smelling so bad. It’s like the cleaning ladies never even opened the window to let the air out.

Either way, I had to stay there for the night, so I sucked it up (literally), and went to sleep.

Activity Tally