Silver Week (Part 2)

Before Silver Week Leila had told me about a Goth club in Osaka she had heard about, not really a regular club - but once a month or so there is a Goth event at one club - and having not had access to anything like a decent club for a long time I was very interested.

So Leila and I headed off to Osaka on July 20th.

While Kyoto is a city it mostly promotes itself on the basis of it's historical and cultural significance - Osaka on the otherhand is more of an urban playground, a full on bright lights, big city kind of place where it does seem there's a lot going on (A varied live music and club scene, a Universal Studios theme park, a massive aquarium with a whale shark in one tank apparently; I can't wait to see that, and I should see it next week with a really nice girl I met last week. Hi, Harumi if you're reading this!). Osaka really feels like a proper metropolitian city, and another world after all the ricefields of Imazu.

The morning was spent just checking out the Namba district shops (lots of alternative, retro and really cool stuff!) As I was only wearing a batman T-shirt I just *had* to go shopping for clubbing clothes :-) So this is me doing my best girly shopping pose -

What I actually bought was a nice new suit and a pair of Docs

The result was quite good though as by evening I was 'transformed' to this -

Leila also bought a new outfit - but more of a cosplay style thing

So in tip-top clubbing mood we went out onto the streets again

We just wandered for a while taking it in, people in Osaka love to eat and there are so many resturants of so many kinds - there are some great places selling octopus with funky big octopus signs, and we saw the famous posionous fish that they serve here; every year in Japan several people die of poisoning because this fish hasn't been prepared correctly.

- Osaka also has groovy people shaped street lights and the happiest police men ever! -

This was all still too early to go to the Goth Club - so Leila showed me a 'Live House'; basically a small venue for live music from local bands. You pay one price and get to see three bands.

The first band was already playing when we arrived and was so-so, the second band was pretty good they had a kind of retro lead singer with 50's hair and they had a kind of punk roc'n'roll vibe that really worked (Plus then they finished one member of the band had to be taken away in an ambulance to hospital with bleeding head - but he finished the set first! Not quite sure how it happened, but very rock'n'rolla) the third band was just plain bad - they looked bad, they sounded bad, they were bad!

Then Leila met a Tazmanian friend of hers and I went straight ahead to the Goth Club accross the road - The music was a mix of goth, electronic and industrial as opposed to the classic goth music I prefer; but I liked what what they played and it was danceable - which is all that really matters to me in a club. It wasn't too busy, and I get the feeling Goth is a bit of a small but devoted community - some of the clothes were fantastic. Look closely one girl has got a BOAT in her hair!!! (I've put most of these pictures into B&W or sepia as it just suits them better!)

The guy with all the facial metal was the DJ. I had a really good time, I haven't danced so much for ages. The next Goth night is Halloween and I'm planning to go again - maybe invest in a good frilly Gothic shirt and some fake blood to dribble from the corner of my mouth Vampire style (and a single black rose of course!).

Still I did look worse for wear the next morning - even without drinking!

Well - it's 1am here and I'm not clubbing tonight - so I'm going to go to bed now; actually I've got my friend, Murosensei, staying over in my other room tonight as he was drinking at a work party and didn't want to drive home to the otherside of the lake. That's got nothing to do with anything else in this entry, but it is a current fact - as opposed to writing about what happened 3 weeks ago (like I always seem to be doing!)

I really don't have time to be writing to everybody personally, but I'd love to hear from some of you from (ex)Berlitz and beyond - if you don't have much time either just drop a quick comment on the blog sometime; it'd be nice to know who's reading it!! I get a lot of views recorded, but no comments.

Anyway, here's the Osaka album
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020712&id=1122485897&l=a4324f6692