My batteries were drained and the energy was leaking out of my broken heel. 

It was a long bus ride through the night, ‘It can’t be late, this is Japan!’ I thought, as the hours on the clock above the driver crept up and up. 

This was my first time on a Japanese highway bus. The seats were more comfortable than the European and American long distance routes. Each seat had a hood contraption that folded down over the passenger and covered the face allowing for privacy while trying to sleep. 

I did sleep a bit, the entertainment system in front of me that included a controller to play video games was a novelty I didn’t need to explore. I was too uncomfortable to think of anything but shutting my body down and forgetting the pain. 

At dawn the bus finally pulled into Osaka and I needed a smoke. I had finished my pack during the rare pit stops along the way. I went straight for the first Family Mart I saw to buy cigarettes, the attempt ending in failure, this Family Mart was a little too family oriented apparently. 

“Lucky Strikes Red.” I said to the teenage clerk, she gave me a confused shake of the head. 

“Cigarettes.” I said, putting two fingers to my mouth. 

She was cute, the type you could imagine going back home after work, dressing up in cosplay and singing songs about kittens for fun. 

By the third time of asking, the look on her face had devolved to a slight anger that I had not understood that for some reason this particular location of Family Mart was nicotine free. 

I left the weirdest Family Mart in all Japan and felt the frustration of being without my best friend brewing, how many hours throughout the night dreaming of getting off the bus and being able to smoke freely, now the only convenience store I could find was smoke free. 

The absence of 7-Eleven, Family Mart and Lawsons around was unusual, these stores were omnipresent in Fukuoka, without them I felt a little more lost. Was this some desolate area of Osaka that was no good or would the rest of it turn out to be the same?

Arriving in a new city in a foreign country is like going back to Level 1 in a video game. I had no idea where anything was, all I had were my instincts. 

I was determined to prove the thought of Osaka being anything but a great big modern Japanese metropolis wrong. 

My mood was off though and as my physical condition deteriorated further I just wanted a place to eat or sleep or a fucking hug cafe or something. 

I was on some high mountain, injured and fighting the temptation to lay down and die. I walked around bemused, half dead and half alive, the heel of my foot still throbbing in pain. 

Standing on the sidewalk of a highway above the city and staring at this giant place I felt exposed. I was well overdue a real shower, a change of clothes, a real bed to sleep in. 

I made my way through the winding busy streets by the main station and found a cafe, it offered no hugs but it would do for breakfast. I went in and ordered an expensive set. 

I finished my breakfast wondering if the people at the other end of the long bar could smell me. 

I went into the small cafe toilet and changed into a pair of jeans and a new shirt, washed as much as I could in the sink, sprayed some deodorant and put on my shoes. 

The shoes would further the case for a future foot amputation but plasters were no longer working and I couldn’t stand knowing that everyone walking behind me was getting a clear view of my pus hole. 

It was my pus hole, not theirs. 

I walked and walked and finally found an internet cafe to get some sleep. My first day in Osaka was a pretty fraught one. 

I woke up having barely slept. I couldn’t stand another six hour stay in an internet cafe so I decided to book a hotel instead. 

I was running low on money but decided being stuck in a tiny box in a room with a hundred Japanese men watching porn, playing video games and coughing at my smell would lower my morale even more 

I crashed out for the next two days in the comfort of a nice business hotel and spent the time searching for a solution. 

I checked out of the hotel without finding a solution and not knowing where I would be sleeping that night. 

As I pondered the options outside the hotel, a skinny, tired man approached me. 

It was another of Japan’s random conversations. 

Without much small talk he jumped into his burning question. He steadied himself, looking at me with a sullen seriousness, “I work for Microsoft. How do you view this? How do you view Microsoft?” he asked. 

I can’t remember what I told him. 

I wandered the streets that day before giving in and blacking out at a net cafe. During a frantic web search after I awoke from a shitty sleep I found a possible solution, ‘Is this real?’ I thought, staring at the desktop monitor. 

It was obviously far too good to be true even with the negative of being in Shinsekai, the so-called most dangerous area of Japan. 

The deal looked incredibly sweet. A single room for less than ¥2000. It was called the TOYO Hostel or Hotel, I can’t remember if they advertised as a great hostel or a shitty hotel. 

I was still only 70% sure the thing was legit but I had run out of options, so I took a chance and booked it. 

I arrived in Shinsekai that night, it was a dirty little place, one that looked like it had been forgotten by the government and society of greater Osaka. An area for misfits and hobos that had been left behind. It wouldn’t have been surprising to find the place enclosed behind barbed wire and signage warning people not to enter. 

A zombie film set. 

As I walked the dark wet streets trying to find the accommodation I was bombarded by a young Japanese squandral. He was too nice and the streets were too empty. I was walking fast and now he was too. 

He was following me. 

Intent on something. 

We walked around piles of garbage and over soggy cardboard beds as he asked me question after question in perfect English. 

I stayed calm and maintained a confident energy. 

Confident. In a hurry, nice to meet you, see ya later! 

He kept at it. Building to something… 

Time slowed. 

Light    misty       rain. Traffic lights flashing in the distance. The errant sounds of the odd car speeding through the disaster zone. 

I was 55% sure that I was about to be in a fight to the death. One of us would end up flat out on the wet concrete, blood flowing, diluted by the rain. 

“Hey, look, I really gotta get to my bed and sleep, I’ll be here awhile, I’m sure I’ll see you around!” 

I shook his hand and slapped him on the back. 

“Seeya!” 

“Yeah, cool, yeah, see you around, yeah!” 

He turned and walked back down the street. 

My heart was pounding, my veins mighty rivers of adrenaline. I stopped and looked behind me. He was gone. 

I came across more strange humans nearer to TOYO. 

Ugly and very old prostitutes yelling at the top of their lungs. Groups of gutter punks. The odd midget and towering clown. 

It was a fucking horror. 

TOYO itself though was an oasis in the desert of filth. Thankfully it was no scam, the cheap price being down to the fact it was surrounded by sin and sludge. 

I checked in relieved. 

Once I was in my room, that was it. Osaka for me was that little room, my walks to the konbinis nearby and smoking out on the balcony. Weeks of rest. Weeks of nothing. 

On my last night in Osaka I met a Chinese guy, he was grabbing people in the hallway and trying to talk to them. I saw the bizarre act as I made my way down the stairs to wash my laundry, a thing I usually always left until the last minute. 

He would attempt to talk to someone and they would slide past him trying not to get caught up in a conversation with the over-eager grabber. I felt a bit sorry for him. 

I talked to him for a few seconds but used the excuse but the very real excuse of my urgent need to complete my laundry to get out of the firing line. It didn’t work. He followed me into the small room and stuck to me while I shoved my dirty clothing into the machine and paid it a few hundred yen. 

“I’m going to go for a smoke.” I said, hoping he wouldn’t come with me. 

He did. 

“Do you have a girlfriend?” he asked, hanging his head back and putting his arms over the balcony, “You’re very handsome.” 

I finally realised the obvious. It was hormones that were following me around and disturbing my laundry mission. 

I let him down gently. 

The next day I boarded another highway bus to Tokyo. I was tired. I needed a few weeks of nothing and that is exactly what I got in Osaka.