![Osaka, Japan](https://i0.wp.com/vagobond.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/5A3484EE-3354-4E49-8B3F-0AC2799C37C8-1024x768.jpeg?resize=640%2C480)
![Dotonbori, Osaka Japan](https://i0.wp.com/vagobond.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/E18A091D-0C1A-4CFB-A9A4-B440CB087E6E-1024x768.jpeg?resize=640%2C480)
Japanese people are simply fun for me to watch. I try not to stare. The cute kids playing on the train, the exhausted workmen, the hipster youth, the giggling work girls. I love the diversity within the Japanese themselves – I think they are a beautiful people, in general. And yes, I find Japanese women to almost universally be attractive – and slightly bizarre at the same time. From the dignified mother watching her kids on the train to the elf-like girls in the ramen shop to the grandmother type who made the crazy beaker coffee yesterday – not a romantic attraction, although certainly there are beauties that inspire me, but more of a simple liking of them – I simply like Japanese women. Japanese men are also pleasant to meet and talk with – the young barman last night ( I got a beer in an Irish pub owned by a cool Osaka guy, father of four young kids, never takes a day off, has a nice place). I was led there by the night manager of the hotel when I simply asked where there was a pub – he decided I wanted an Irish pub and after much looking at maps and having the desk girl (she was lovely) explain things to me – which I understood quite well – he decided to walk me there.
![Dotonbori, Osaka Japan](https://i0.wp.com/vagobond.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/76ED53DE-F847-4AE1-A268-39F7CA54DC2F-1024x768.jpeg?resize=640%2C480)
I had the best bowl of ramen in my life in one of the privacy slurping places – and ordered a side of green onions with peanuts which were like heaven. At the aforementioned coffee in beakers bar, I met a very nice older Aussie couple.
![Dotonbori, Osaka Japan](https://i0.wp.com/vagobond.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/CE132932-6DA8-4478-8E22-6AA82F7F8977-1024x768.jpeg?resize=640%2C480)
As I walked through the neon lit streets of Dotonbori. I was exhausted, but exhilarated and filled with a sense of happiness. The canals and the lights and the shops and the delighted people watching puppies in the window of a pet shop. And the entire time, I felt safe. No vague sense of being followed or being worried about getting mugged or getting my pocket picked. The tiny slightly smoke-stinky hotel room is fun in it’s difference from a western hotel.This is simply a first taste of a country that I hope I can come back to again and again and again.