Japan: Mike gets nude in Osaka

On my third day in Japan I travelled to the hit city "Osaka!"

I rode the Hikari bullet train, or shinkansen, which was pretty exciting for me. Here it is coming into the station.

There's a faster train in Japan but you can't use it with the Japan Rail Pass.

Train stations sell these boxes of food to take onto the train. It was a tasty treat.

It took about three hours to get to Osaka. I wasn't really sure what to do there so I just picked a neighborhood from my guidebook: Shinsekai.

It's a strange place. It has a theme park atmosphere but it isn't one. I read that the part I was in was modelled after Coney Island.

Osaka's motto is roughly "eat til you drop." They have various specialties, one of which is takoyaki, battered octopus balls slathered in mayo and teriyaki sauce.

It was cold and rainy out, most of the museums are closed on Tuesday, but what happened to be nearby? Spa World! It has various themed pools to soak in and apparently uses real hot spring water. But, like all hot springs in Japan, you must enjoy them nude.

You may be surprised by this, but I am not completely comfortable being nude around other people. I tend to be very selective about who can see my genitals and generally keep them covered in public.

I was provided with a very small towel but didn't want to blatantly cover myself because it would make people think that I was ashamed of myself. On the other hand, I didn't want people seeing what I had going on down there. I solved the problem with these two strategies:

1. I used my pale hairy body as a distraction mechanism. There's no time to judge a man's genitals if you're busy judging the rest of him.

2. I held the small towel close to my crotch but didn't completely cover it. I employed a technique that made it seem like I wasn't trying to hide anything but that still made it difficult to see anything.

After my soak, I checked into my Airbnb and set out to enjoy Dotonbori, a popular nightlife area. I wandered around and bought some gyoza to make my stomach and my dad happy (he is really into them these days).

There are also smaller, less busy side streets here that seem very cool.

Here's a more normal Osaka street, just for comparison.

The city also has a lot of freeway overpasses and wide streets that often made it tricky to navigate as a pedestrian.

You can see more photos from this day here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/LeebluloB1LOsIcG2