subways, trains and Japanese ori

Last night Donald had a show in Osaka with two members of the Boredoms. I was excited to go to the city and experience my first show in Japan. Shows start early here and Donald needed to be there early to prepare. We left in a rush around 3pm. We started at the very familiar subway station near his place, caught the train downtown and did a very complicated transfer to the Hunkyo line with impressive efficiency, just catching the express train to Osaka. (This line had a really great solution to no elevator: a stair lift!) It never would have happened if Donald hadn't thoroughly checked out the elevators at this station ahead of time. But having caught that train we thought we would make it in time and maybe even have time to get a bite to eat. We arrived in Osaka at 4:35 and raced off to find the elevators in unexplored territory. We went back and forth, talked to station agents, went outside found elevators at the top of staircases, talked to maintenance staff, security agents of the building... nobody seemed to know how I would get to the subway. Eventually they caved in and four security agents carried my scooter in pieces down the stairs. But we still were far from where we needed to get on the subway. When we were finally on the subway it was after 6pm. We had more confusion and lengthy routes getting out of the station, we ran into Yamamoto on the street and walked to the club. I parked outside and climbed down into the most inaccessible club I could imagine, but we made it.


Stair lift in action

From the first act (Psychic Salary Man) to Donald's performance it was mesmerizingly bizarre entertainment. Donald amazed me by singing almost completely in Japanese, and if you are familiar with Donald's style you know he makes this up as he goes - ori style.


psychic salary man


Donald dazzling his audience


Rumi and Donald

Many of Donald's friends and classmates had come to the show, so afterwards we ate dinner there and headed to the train together. This time barriers be damned--I had a whole pack of friends to get me through anything we faced. We were in it together. So when there was no elevator to get us to the platform we needed brut force went into action and we quickly disassembled the scooter and took it down the steps.

Later we found out that the way to do it was to take the train two stops down and it would turn around. It was late so I still don't know if that would have worked. But we had fun on the ride. We got to witness late night drunken passages of our fellow riders. This inspired a long cross cultural discussion about puke.


Seth is trying out the cool ride


Donald fits right in on the subway