3/28-29 dancing in osaka

For the first time of our trip, Ben and I were able to connect with the dance scene in a city! We arrived in Osaka (after a 5 hour train trip from Matsuyama) on Saturday afternoon, and went out to a weekly swing dance that night. We were warmly embraced by the small group of lindy hoppers, and were even treated to a jam (for my non-dancing readers: they circled up around us and everyone took turns dancing with us during a song.) Their skills were solid and playful, and the owner of the venue, Charlie Nishio, made us feel more than welcome.

We were invited to join a small group the following day for a dance under the cherry blossoms at Osaka-jo castle in honor of Frankie Manning. Another translation for non-dancing readers: Frankie Manning is the forefather of the subset of swing dancing, lindy hop, that is so very popular today, and he is turning 95 this year so the dance community is flipping out. Our understanding was that there would be a videotaped dance of the shim-sham (a short choreographed dance that almost every swing dancer worth their shoes knows), and the video would be sent in with many others to be shown at his birthday party bash. We wanted to support Frankie, and dance under some cherry trees, and were planning to visit the castle anyway (of course) so off we went.

Once we arrived, we found out that in fact they were going to videotape a brand new choreographed dance that had been created specifically for Frankie's birthday, in addition to the shim-sham. We watched the video of the new choreography on someone's ipod nano screen, and within an hour of cramming felt pretty comfortable with it. However, the afternoon went much longer than we expected as other dancers were trying to grapple with it, and we practiced over and over under the direction of the organizer of the event. Concrete and street shoes plus lots of lindy hop is not a good combination at all (especially with the massive amount of hiking we're doing on a daily basis), so we decided to stick it out until the first round of filming and pack it in. I'm really glad we participated, and it was fun to learn choreography, which I so rarely do as a social dancer, but I wish we had just done several renditions of the shim sham at various locations around Osaka (especially since Frankie invented the shim sham too!). I also didn't get any pictures of the event because I was too busy dancing, but am hoping to add some later from other sources. And I also wish we had put on sun-screen before dancing in the sun for four hours. I am a bit crispy.

So we gracefully bowed out, with promises to come to their Wednesday swing dance, and moved on with our plans for the day. Yes readers, another castle. But unlike the others, Osaka castle has actually seen real battles, and fallen! Sieges, invasions, battles, etc! Inside the castle was the usual museum displays of katana swords, tools and pottery shards, model replicas of the castle and surrounding city circa 1400s, and so on. However, two of the floors featured amazing original painted screens, some in series, of famous battle scenes.





After an eight story climb (elevators schmelevators) we were exhausted, but I opened my eyes enough to appreciate yet another spectacular view. You can see my skin matches my sweatshirt, too!



We were so tired on our way back to the hotel, but decided to grab dinner because we knew we would crash hard once back at the room. We found a decent place between the subway station and our hotel, with plastic food models outside (always an easy meal choice, just point and motion for one), and a vending machine that dispensed meal tickets to hand to the waiter. Easy. We ordered double salads and got a whole jug of water, entrees (Ben accidentally ordered a cheese-stuffed hamburger steak instead of a cheeseburger) and set about replenishing ourselves. Back at the hotel, I enjoyed a nice soak in the onsen (have I mentioned how much I love onsen?) before crashing into sleepy oblivion.