Welcome to the It Is English podcast.
My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host Xochitl.
And today we're going to talk about my family's trip to Osaka this summer.
And Xochitl, have you been to Osaka before?
Yes um, i went to japan november 2024, so it's been a little bit.
Oh yeah, that's right.
You took a trip around uh, all over asia right yeah well, all over korea and japan.
I did want to go to china, but i'm kind of saving that one because it's such a huge country.
It kind of its own trip.
You got to talk to some of our, our group members from our uh, our wechat, because you might be able to uh get some inside information, you know, from them.
For sure, yeah.
Because I've been to China before when I was younger, like maybe 10 years ago, but uh, it's been a long time and i kind of want to go to new areas.
You know, it's just like when i went back to korea, i i went back to some places i'd been before, but i went to a lot of places i hadn't been, because just want to see new stuff every time.
For me, i like seeing new things every time.
But osaka was my favorite place in japan, i would say, besides asakusa temple in tokyo, which i really enjoyed.
But um, i just love the food.
You know, they call it japan's kitchen for a reason.
Um yes yakisoba yakisoba um, okonomiyaki and sushi is really good there.
The sushi is so good, it's so cheap.
Yeah, the sushi i had in um, tokyo was disappointing, actually shockingly, but the one i had in in osaka, i still dream about these like butter, braised scallops on the sushi.
It was like so delicious and amazing.
Yeah yeah, i wonder if i had that.
I don't, i don't think i did actually, but i um, because i'm, i just go for the salmon and the tuna.
You know like, i'm just a uh traditional, like i just love the.
I just find something.
I like i just hit the button again and again and again.
You know, are you a adventures eater or oh yeah, i'll eat anything.
But you know, i just uh, whatever comes along the conveyor belt, you know like i'll grab it, i'll give it a shot.
Unless it looks uh, you know, unless it's still moving uh, then i'll probably let it go.
Right.
So did you go with your daughter as well?
Yeah.
So it was my, it was kind of our family trip for the summer and kind of the last hurrah, because my daughter is going into her senior year in American high school.
So she'll be going back to America.
And but, you know, Osaka's, you know, Japan, Japan trips are.
It wasn't a cultural trip for us.
We're not that kind of family.
We're the shopping family, you know.
Ah, okay.
And it's you know, Osaka and Tokyo is just shop after shopping shopping shopping, shopping shopping.
Don Quixote, you know, is a great.
Wait, I don't.
I went to Don Quixote and I didn't like it that much.
Sorry, Stan.
This is interesting.
Okay.
I mean, I don't mean to cut you off.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
No, no, no, no.
It's okay because.
They just got all the little weird things.
I've got these little neck towels that have menthol, so it's a cooling effect on it.
It's just lots of weird little things that they have like beauty products and soothing products and stuff like health products.
Um, so I was, I'm, I'm, I'm always into, uh, a trip to Don Quixote and food too.
They've got really weird little food things that are really cool.
So, or really delicious.
So they do have good food stuff.
Yeah.
Wasabi, edamame things or whatever, you know, like, yeah, this stuff is awesome.
I love it.
They have these great like chocolate um covered snack crackers.
I don't know what's in these, like queso flavored, like it says queso on it or something, but it's like cheese flavored chips.
They're really delicious.
They do have really good snacks.
I i i'm kind of weird because well, i'm broke, because i'm still in my 20s.
Oh so i thank you.
They might be eat into your budget too much, you know.
Yeah.
I mean I went.
I did go a couple of times, but but a lot of the stuff is like I could find the same thing online cheaper.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I'm like you know, if I want like a menthol neck towel, I can look that up on like Shane or something or or Temu, and find it, like you know, like for a quarter of the price, yeah.
So that's kind of like the type of person i am.
If i can find it online cheaper, then i'm not buying it, okay.
Okay yeah, all bets were off when we were in japan.
It was like just, we were just yeah, i'm gonna buy this and this and this and, and we didn't even think about money.
But at the time, but it was just he kind of like uh well, because you know, like he, You get to a different stage in life or whatever, and you're just like okay, we've got this budget.
Like let's just spend this money that we put, you know, on a trip.
And you know we're not – it's not the traveling that I did back in the day when I was in my 20s.
You know where I had one little bag with two T-shirts and we were just roughing in the cheapest places we could find in Thailand, and you know what I mean, like eating at the food stalls and stuff like that.
And there's something charming about that.
But when you get to like 48 years old, you're kind of like, I'm just going to eat in the restaurant.
You know, you need the comfort.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I crave comfort because when I was like.
When I stayed in Osaka I stayed in a dorm.
I stayed in the cheapest like hostel dormitory I could find, which was a bed in a 16-person female dorm for like 30 a night.
And it was kind of terrible cause I got very sick because there was a bunch of other sick people you know like, cause it was winter.
And so it was kind of crazy.
Um, but, uh, And the beds were horrible.
I mean, oh, my God, like the lumpiest mattress you could ever imagine.
My hip hurt so bad because, you know, I have a bad hip.
Right.
And I've had a bad hip since I was a teenager.
So it was just it was kind of miserable in that sense.
And so I was like, if I ever go back to Japan, I certainly want to go back to Japan like with money.
Because I feel like Japan with money is an entirely different experience than Japan broke.
But I did buy a lot of things and I totally get where you're coming from.
But it was mostly like thrift finds of like places that I knew that I wouldn't be able to afford or I wouldn't be able to find anywhere else, you know.
Right, right, right.
Yeah, I know.
I got you.
And we're the opposite.
You know my daughter spent probably one hundred dollars on like three like stuffed animals that clip onto your backpack, your bag or whatever.
You know what I mean?
Wow.
Yeah.
It's like this.
Twenty dollars for that thing.
It's like, you know, the boo boo thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I want one.
I want one.
It's like, all right.
You know, yeah, it's but the thing is that I realize is that I'm not really a traveler type person.
Like, you know, we walk like 20,000 steps a day, which is good.
You know, it's good for my health.
But, you know, it's just like the shopping after shopping after shopping.
Even I get like tuckered out by that.
I just get too too, you know, I just want to I don't know what I want to do.
I feel like other than shopping and eating, there wasn't really much to do.
And you know, we went to Shinsekai, which was within walking distance of our hotel, which is really cool.
I kind of like that better than Dotonbori.
Dotonbori is the more populated area um, but you know, i find that eating in the pot in those areas is is terrible, because the food is not that good.
Like they're just now all trying to, you know, kind of who can cut the most corners and make the most profit and and the tourists, just you know, suck it up.
And i'm like We found a little noodle place that was totally off the beaten path, near our hotel.
And it was the most wonderful meal that we've had there.
And we went there twice because it was just like just one of those great discoveries, you know, just random.
They look good.
And those are the real treats, I think, is when you kind of do some exploring.
And I love to just go out and explore the city.
Like, I don't know.
I don't like having an agenda.
You know, we're going to go to this place and do the shopping.
But for my wife and my daughter, it was more of a shopping excursion.
And that's fine.
But for me I prefer to live in a place like I would love to live in Japan, you know where I could just like not have to any sort of like time, you know like constraints.
Yeah.
Time constraints.
Right.
Whereas it's like I have to, you know, go see everything and do all the stuff.
Instead I could just like live there and work there, kind of integrate into the society slowly and figure things out.
That would be very, very interesting for me.
So.
I'm thinking my wife and I are just going to wind down.
But you know, instead of retiring, I could just I could get a job teaching English in Japan for a year.
That would be exciting, you know.
And then come back to Korea, reset and then figure out another place to go.
So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.
You know is like I want to go back to Japan, but I want to do it like I want to live there, you know.
And maybe once my daughter is more settled and like, has a job and everything and we don't have to, you know, be her primary caretakers and pay for everything, you know, that would be like a really exciting adventure would be to get a job at teaching English in Japan for a year.
Yeah, you know, i have two points to this one.
Um, i think you should consider like slow travel, which i kind of like, which is like not, i think it's easier, also for people with chronic pain, and also like because 20 000 steps a day is fun but, like you know, your back was probably killing you after a while.
Oh, after 10 000 steps, i have to, like i have to Do the Asian old lady squat, you know, just to take the pressure off my spine because I have a bad back.
So, yeah, it's brutal.
Yeah.
And and it's like taxis aren't super cheap like they are in Korea.
So it's like kind of.
I mean, I know you're not too worried about money, but still it's like no, we never took a taxi.
We took the subway everywhere, you know yeah yeah, it adds up, and in Korea it's just so much more convenient because you can jump in.
But anyway, back to my point about slow travel.
It's like I prefer slow travel because it like gives you a chance to experience everything on like a different level.
And then I feel like the shopping shopping, like go go, go trips are like I mean, this isn't to look down on it, because I definitely do my fair share of shopping.
Trust me.
But it's more like consumerist and you you enjoy it less in some ways.
You know like it just becomes very same same after a while.
Oh, yeah.
It was just me going in there and then.
My wife and my kid looking for the thing and I'm sitting on the Adidas shop bench looking at my phone for a half an hour 45 minutes.
And then we go to the next place and I sit down and I look because no one cares about my opinion.
I'm not useful in these situations.
Girl dad, this is exactly how you know my dad suffered, but my dad was like way more vocal about he never liked like us going shopping too much.
You know he's like oh, you know why, it's about experiences, not about buying stuff.
So i feel like while it was kind of annoying to have a dad that was like overbearing in a sense, we did get to experience another thing of like It's less about buying and more about like having certain experiences.
And but I get you because I'm definitely prone to buying a bunch of stuff as well.
And there was no way I was going to stop the this this tidal wave like this is what we're there for.
So, you know, I knew I knew what it was going to be.
But for me, it was just wasn't exciting, you know.
If I were in my 20s back in the old days, I probably would have just found a bar.
Yes, yes, definitely.
Had a drink, you know, but I don't drink anymore.
So it's just, you know, I just wait, you know, just waiting waiting waiting, and then walking wait walk wait, walk.
That was it.
You know.
My second point is that I find it very interesting because you know I'm into astrology and I kind of am not as into it anymore.
But I think in this particular sense, I'm thinking about it is like.
You wanting to live in Japan for a year.
I feel the same way when I travel.
I think it's because we're air signs and we're endlessly curious.
And we want to know how things work.
We don't just want the superficial visit.
We want to get in there more than than a tourist just superficially walks on the surface of every place they visit.
We want to integrate ourselves into every single process and experience.
You know the endless bureaucracy of moving to a place, what it's like renting in a place, the public transport system.
You know every place that you can eat that locals eat at, like everything in a way more deep dive, you know.
Do you agree with that?
I totally agree.
I'm a, i'm a liver, not a, not a.
Uh, not a traveler.
Yeah you're, you're a traveler, but you're not a tourist.
You're like a, an experiencer, a liver.
You want to get like in in there.
You know, really into the the, Exactly.
I love, I love the minutia of every day waking up and getting like a bicycle and just biking around Osaka.
You know like going to biking to work.
You know the way everyone uses bicycles.
It's awesome.
I just that was seems so attractive to me.
But it was like not it's not where we were at that point.
You know, it wasn't like it wasn't possible.
And so it just basically just gave me like a taste, just a little tiny taste of it, and just left me wanting more, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's kind of where it ended up.
But you know we had a nice time with the family and you know it's just a great, great experience.
And, you know, I would never, you know, downplay what, you know, the fun.
But, you know, it was a quick three days and you're back into the normal daily grind again.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
I think yeah, I mean, maybe you should.
We, we ended up doing certain things with my dad once we got older, which is like my mom, my sister and I would like do our own thing, like if that was shopping or beauty stuff or whatever.
And my dad would kind of go do his, even if it was just.
Like you know, he's older than my mom as well.
Mm hmm.
And so not that much older, but like I feel like six years makes a difference once you get to a certain age.
Yeah, sure, sure.
So sometimes he would just be like he's just going to kick back, do some work, like some writing or whatever he had to do because he's a professor.
And he would write these articles.
So he'd, like, kick back, do some writing and chill at the hotel for a while.
And then we'd meet up for, like, a meal together.
Or something.
And my mom, sister, and I would all be running around shopping.
I think that's probably a better way to do it.
And that's probably the way we will do it in the future, I think.
I'll just go off and do my own thing and sit in a coffee shop and whatever and just people watch.
And then they can go shopping, you know, and I'll be totally satisfied with that.
I think it'll be good for your chronic pain, because I know for me personally.
In Japan my chronic pain was flaring like crazy because Korea is like super convenient.
So you can just like...
Pretty much jump into a taxi any time at any place and get anywhere super cheap, basically.
So if your chronic pain is flaring, it's pretty easy to figure it out.
But Japan, sometimes the elevators are only for people who have an actual disability.
Well, not an actual, but like a pass, like a disability pass.
And it says that on the little elevator there.
Or like sometimes escalators only go one way, like down or up, and you have to carry your luggage around.
Or like the taxi is super expensive.
So these are just little things about Japan.
That was very hard as someone with like an invisible disability.
I was like, oh, my God, my hip is killing me.
Yeah, yeah.
I can't just run around being like my back, my back every single time.
So, you know, you just have to grin and bear it.
But uh yes yeah, it was very.
It was that's how i felt.
Like, you know, i'm a young person, so i'm obviously a woman in her 20s, so i can't just be like oh, i need to use this, i'm disabled.
Yeah, you can't explain your your life story to them every time you get in an elevator.
Yes, I would just, yeah, I would just suffer through it, but it was very exhausting after a while.
I definitely took some off days, just like chilling in the, in the bed at the hostel because i was like oh my god my hips are gonna like break off all right listeners well um let us know about your experiences traveling have you ever been to osaka as well um jack and i talk about these kind of things all the time so if you're interested make sure to leave us a comment down below about your own experiences or anything you'd like to hear on the podcast you can listen to us on pretty much any platform where you get your usual podcasts and you can only shoot us an email at a to z english podcast at gmail.com that's a to z english podcast at gmail.com and make sure to join our wechat group to join the conversation we'll see you guys next time bye bye bye
