Midosuji – awordfromjapan

屋上　okujou—up on the roof

Published on December 4, 2012December 4, 2012 by daraconnolly1 Comment

Here’s a little park in the heart of Osaka, where I sometimes sit and have lunch in the sunshine. Can you guess where it is?

There’s even a small shrine, with fox guardians.

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Well, as alert readers will have guessed from the title of this post, this little haven is actually on the roof of the 8-storey building where I work.

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Sitting up here on a sunny day, it’s easy to forget you are high above the busy streets of the city.

Looking down into Midosuji Avenue. The gingko trees lining the avenue are still beautiful in their autumn yellow, although some are now starting to lose their leaves.

ガスビル　gasu biru—The Gas Building

Published on June 4, 2012June 4, 2012 by daraconnolly2 Comments

I work in the Osaka Gas Building, an elegant pre-war building on Midosuji Avenue in the middle of Osaka.

The Gas Building was designed by Takeo Yasui and opened in 1933. It was painted black during the war and was one of the few buildings in the area to survive the bombing. The north half (seen in the above photo) is a later addition.

The Gas Building restaurant on the 8th floor is open to the public, and in 1933 was the first western-style restaurant in Osaka. It is a beautiful space with curved glass walls overlooking the city, and the original wooden décor. Their signature dish is the “Special Gas Building curry”, the name of which I find childishly amusing.

The building is a little bit Déco:

As is another, more familiar, Gas Building on the other side of the world (also, coincidentally, dating from 1933):

The Dublin Gas Building in D’Olier Street has some amazing interior features, but it doesn’t have a shrine on the roof. This shrine (complete with guardian foxes) is on the roof of the Osaka Gas Building, directly above where I work.

The entrance at street level is flanked by these gas-lights:

There are original period interior features, but I didn’t feel comfortable about taking photos inside the building.

Note on the word of the day:

Japanese shortens the English word “Building” to ビル biru. This despite the fact that there is of course a perfectly good word for building in Japanese: 建物　tatemono. A huge number of loan words are used in Japanese even when there is an existing Japanese word. Loan words from English are usually written in katakana, for example ガス　gasu—gas.

But look at this:

I was amazed to see the word “gas” written in kanji like this: 瓦斯. This is an extremely rare case of a loan word from a western language being written in kanji. There are so few examples of this that the same examples are always used: tabako (tobacco) can be written as 煙草; peeji (page) as 頁. I also recently found out that there are kanji (rarely used nowadays) for the various SI units and their prefixes and suffixes. (Though consider that Roman-letter abbreviations such as cm or kg are kanji, when they are used in Japanese.)

By coincidence, the kanji 瓦　which appears in the sign above as the first character in gasu is also the character used for gram. Its original meaning is roof-tile, and it is in that role that I will return to it in a later post.

朝　asa—morning

Published on May 30, 2012 by daraconnolly2 Comments

Every morning I get up at six and take the dogs for a walk in the park.

Almost everywhere, dogs have to be kept on the lead. Dogs in Japan rarely if ever get a chance to run freely. Which is sad. But there is this place that I call the “future park” – it’s a newly-developed extension of the big park, and there are no signs (yet) about dogs and leads… So we go there and the dogs can have a run.

On the way back through the main park, with the dogs on the lead, I see the old people playing “gateball” (it looks like croquet). It’s amazing, they are out there every single morning at 6.

We come home at around 6:40 and I have a wash and get dressed for work. No tie, because of Coolbiz. Breakfast is oats or granola and a cup of tea, maybe some toast, and then it’s time to leave for work. The dogs and Yuko come to the screen door to see me off.

My route to the station takes between 10 and 15 minutes, bringing me around the edge of the park, then along a footpath lined with zelkova trees.

I usually arrive at the subway station at about 7:55 or 8 and swipe my ticket.

I’m not in a rush – there are trains every couple of minutes so even if I hear a train arriving I don’t bother to run.

Even though it’s only the second station on the line, all the seats are already taken, so it’s standing room only.

But despite the well-known impression of Japanese public transport, it’s not actually that crowded. In Dublin, on the Luas, everyone is pressed tightly together. On the subway in Osaka, there is normally room to stand without touching anyone else.

On the journey I can listen to Japanese lessons on my phone, that I download from japanesepod101.com, or I can read the New Yorker. It takes about half an hour, and then I emerge into the morning sunshine of Midosuji Avenue.

From the station, it’s only about 2 minutes’ walk to this very elegant 1930s building, where I work.

Note on the word of the day:

The Japanese for morning is 朝　asa. The same character appears in the word for “tomorrow” 明日　ashita, just as we might say “in the morning”. To wish someone “Good morning” you say ohayou gozaimasu.