When Homeless Dogs Attack

I celebrated the start of winter vacation by immediately leaving Nagahama. I was even excused from work one hour early (I must’ve looked that bored), so I took that time as a head start, pedaling home with my headphones on, feeling completely elated about spending the next two weeks away from computers, desks, and whiteboards.

Today I’m in Osaka, where I’ll spend the next couple days with my friend Maisie before flying to Hong Kong on Christmas. The train ride to Osaka last night felt much longer than usual--on top of that, the bike trip to Tamura station left me and my luggage soaked and cold as the sky let loose one of the most frigid rains I’ve ever experienced.

Ostensibly, the night was looking up when I approached the station agent in Osaka. I had planned to fib a bit about from where I was coming so as to save a few hundred yen. When I tried explaining to him that I had lost my ticket, but that I came from blah-blah-blah, he blurted, OK, OK, and let me through the turnstile without paying anything. That put me up about 2,000 yen, which was a relief since I wasn’t too keen on paying for a hostel in Osaka and was considering spending Christmas Eve sleeping on an airport bench.

I was meeting Maisie in a neighborhood called “Shinsekai” (which translates as “New World”), where she was squatting in a friend’s apartment while he was gone for the holidays. Shinsekai is where you’ll find Osaka’s heartbreaking zoo, Spa World, and an open-air mall--circulated by a massive roller coaster--called Festival Gates. This neighborhood was formed by Osakans with high hopes for the future of the city, but today the area seems weighed down by an abundance of porno theaters, prostitution, and poor-quality noodle shops. Homelessness is an issue here too.

The walk from Tennoji station to Maisie was a precarious one. We’d agreed to meet beneath the huge, Eiffel-shaped tower near the center of town, but when I set out for it, I could see it, but I couldn’t find a direct route to it. So I ended up weaving my way north and westward, trotting through unlit, narrow streets that bent now and again without warning. At one point I came around a bend (I later realized this road was leading me around the perimeter of the zoo) and was met by four or five pissed-off dogs who were guarding a homeless man’s make-shift residence on the side of the road. My friend Maisie says that many of the homeless in Osaka take in stray dogs to aid as protection from violent teenage punks and insensitive police officers. Makes sense. But this was the first time I’d come upon such guard dogs without having an alternate route available to me. I could only turn back (but I was already running late for the rendezvous). I paused for a second to watch as the dogs chased after cyclers passing by--and even cars!--snarling threateningly. I considered running for it--but then though better of it, fearing that I’d be provoking a chase. Instead I walked straight on with my eyes forward and let the dogs follow me for a good block, all along barking at the backs of my knees. I was scared shitless. When I finally made it to Maisie’s apartment, I found that she kept a metal rod by the door to fend against such quarrelsome creatures in the night.