Autumn's Deep Emotions Parted from Lovers: Kansai Chapter (Part 1)

For the cheap Spring Airlines flight from Chongqing to Osaka (round trip 1700 RMB), our Kansai trip had to start with a hotpot. At that moment, I thought to myself, I must eat my fill now, because for the next ten days I’d be yearning for it! But to my surprise, during our ten days and nine nights in Japan, we never once craved heavy, spicy foods like hotpot or skewers. This was completely different from our trip to Italy and France last year! I never expected Japanese cuisine to make me so content that I forgot about home.

Although Spring Airlines tickets are cheap, their baggage policy is a trap: checked luggage plus carry-on totals only 15 kg. This means if you have any intention of shopping (and with incredibly cheap drugstore cosmetics and clothing, it’s hard to resist), you must purchase extra baggage in advance (about 100 RMB per kg) or pay even more at the airport on the return (about 190 RMB per kg for overweight). When you add it up, the cheap ticket has a hidden catch… Spring Airlines is basically running a logistics business, isn’t it? Moreover, the seats are narrow, no meals are provided, and the flight attendants aren’t even attractive… The only advantage is that Chongqing to Osaka takes just over four hours… So, when choosing an airline to Japan, don’t just go for the cheapest—consider all factors carefully.

I have an elementary school classmate known as Uncle Fish. He’s supposedly a famous figure in the otaku world. Every time he travels with us, it’s to escape the arranged blind dates his family sets up. Once we reach our destination, he stays in the hotel surfing the internet and never leaves his room—claiming it saves him a lot of money compared to going on dates. Uncle Fish said he planned to go to Japan this year to shoot a film—not photography or filming landscapes, but *that* kind of film, you know what I mean. It was late April, and I said I wanted to shoot too, since in those films, the male face rarely appears on camera. Uncle Fish replied, “True, those films don’t show much face, but with your body, you’d make yourself sick watching it.” So I said, “Fine, I’ll train for half a year then.” After six months of exercise, I barely managed to improve my physique, but then Uncle Fish said he’d spent too much money on some card game and couldn’t go. You see, in Japan, many places that bring glory to the country operate on a regular-customer system, not to mention booking professional actresses. Without Uncle Fish’s Japanese fluency and connections in the otaku world—and with only the few phrases I know… forget it, I’d just be a regular tourist.

Let me first talk about some small incidents I experienced in Japan:

1. On the first night in Kyoto, I was buying a subway ticket. I stared at the route map on the vending machine, got a bit confused, and bought a 260-yen ticket. A stranger (a woman) noticed we overpaid, led us to the ticket gate, helped us get a full refund, and we bought the correct tickets.

2. On the first night in Kyoto, out of habit, I checked the doors and windows before sleeping, and even blocked the door with my luggage after locking it. Anna said, “Go check the hallway.” When I stepped out, I saw other guests had left their iPhone 6s on the hallway floor to charge, and in the shared washroom, people had left their phones charging too. I didn’t see any surveillance cameras.

3. In front of the Nara Museum, Xiao Ding, who was in a “sensitive period,” had tied her kimono too tightly, causing poor blood circulation, and she was almost fainting from pain. A passerby immediately asked if we needed a doctor, then went to the tourist information center to seek help. They brought a doctor and a Korean translator (they mistakenly thought we were Korean). After examining her, the doctor drove us back to the kimono rental shop in his own car, told Xiao Ding to rest and take ibuprofen. He didn’t charge a single yen.

4. In an alley across from Tenryu-ji Temple, we asked a rickshaw puller for directions. Two elderly women had just gotten off his rickshaw and were walking away. We thought “the service was over,” so we approached him. But the rickshaw puller asked us to wait. He stood there, watching the two elderly women until they disappeared from his sight. During that time, he bowed to them twice in thanks. Just before the women turned a corner at the end of the alley, they turned back and bowed in gratitude as well (the rickshaw puller waved with a smile and gave a third bow).

5. At Matsuyama’s Umenomoto Station—yes, *that* Umenomoto—the station attendant brought out several large, thick map books and, using gestures and detailed explanations, showed us exactly how to get back to the city center and how to reach Dogo Onsen.

6. In Matsuyama, we took a taxi to our hotel. The driver couldn’t find the hotel using the address he had, so he stopped the meter, called the hotel, got the exact location, and then drove us there.

7. At the 4D cinema in Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, a young male staff member enthusiastically told us that the morning 4D movie wasn’t good, but that Shrek would be shown at 4 PM. He hoped to see us there. When we lined up at 4 PM, he appeared in front of us, happily said he was glad to see us again, called it fate, and gave us a gift—just cartoon stickers, but it was so heartwarming.

8. At the Takashimaya department store in Namba, Osaka, we chose two umbrellas. The salesclerk opened and closed them repeatedly, rotated them, and meticulously inspected every joint and the canopy for any damage—checking at least twice to ensure the quality was flawless.

9. At a drugstore in Shinsaibashi, Osaka, the cashier was a Chinese girl. Everything was so cheap that we had thrown a bunch of items into the basket. Before swiping my card, I randomly picked up one item, pointed at the price tag, and asked, “How much is this in RMB?” The Chinese girl gave me a sour face the whole time and coldly replied, “This isn’t China.” I remembered the taxi driver in Matsuyama who told us, “A few hundred years ago, we might have shared the same ancestors!” He said their culture all came from ours—for example, they use Chinese characters. He said he longed for China. At that moment, I wanted to cry and say to myself, “You’re a fool.”

Mainstream tourist destinations in Japan actually don’t require much of a travel guide. Choose your season, choose a general direction like Kyoto, and just clarify the places you must visit and those you might have to give up due to practical reasons. For example, the seventeen World Heritage sites, the top ten maple-viewing spots (some overlapping with World Heritage sites), the world’s top ten libraries, countless locations used in Japanese dramas and anime, districts that best showcase history and local culture, etc. Just get a map, mark these places, and figure out how to get there—either by checking bus routes (including subways and trains) yourself, or simply by asking station staff, convenience store clerks, or passersby waiting for the bus. Don’t worry about language barriers: you can communicate using Chinese characters, or if you use English, just string words together—though Japanese people’s English pronunciation is almost as bad as Indians’…