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Japan – Day 14 (Nara)

I was back on the struggle bus getting up this morning. I think I just need to accept that I am not a morning person. I have never been a morning person, I am not a morning person, I will never be a morning person…not even when traveling to far and away places can I drag myself out of bed before 7am, preferably not before 9am. At nearly 38 years old this is highly unlikely to change, and I need to acknowledge that. Oh, well.

So I got up, showered, and jumped on the train to Nara. Nara is famous for the wild deer they have running around loose. It’s a managed herd so they take care of them and fix them up if they’re hurt and watch for disease, but they are still wild animals and there are over a thousand of them running all throughout the park. They are so used to people, they barely flinch when a person or a car goes by and as long as you feed them biscuits you can take selfies and pet them. They’ve even been trained to bow their heads in exchange for a treat, like how Japanese people bow to each other to say please and thank you. Although, it’s kind of backfired because now they think if they bow they automatically get a treat and if you don’t have one to give they get mad at you and sometimes headbutt you! That’s why the caregivers go around and saw off their antlers so they don’t hurt anyone. As with everywhere else, the place was far busier than it used to be, but since it’s such a huge area it was manageable for the most part. The only place that was overly crowded was along the creek where the momiji were lined up, which is basically the prettiest spot, so I didn’t get to really take the photos I wanted. I went over and into Todaiji Temple and checked out the giant Buddha statue there. This is the place that has the hole in one of the pillars and if you fit through it you get good luck, and I was able to fit through it last time I was here…but now I’m about 50 pounds heavier so I didn’t even bother to try. No way am I getting through there now! It was still fun to watch the kids wiggling through, and the occasional misguided adult. After the temple I stopped and got some basic soba noodles at a little local shop. Personally I prefer udon and ramen, but soba isn’t terrible and I felt like changing it up. I stopped at another smaller temple, Kofukuji, but didn’t go in and did some shopping in the little street mall by the train station. Then got back on the train to Osaka.

I wanted to go to the all you can eat crab buffet tonight, but they were booked up. So I made a reservation for tomorrow and went to an Okonomiyaki specialty place along the river by Dotonbori. It was a cute place, they even drew a bunny and wrote the date on it in the sauces for decoration, plus it was delicious!

Then I wandered over to Shinsaibashi, which is sort of equivalent to Chicago’s Magnificent Mile; it’s where all the name brand shops and higher end stuff is located right next door to the cheap and knock off stuff. So it’s really a street for all people to find something. I found a store that sold only pet clothes and bought all of my cats’ kimono. Can’t wait to put the kimono on them and take photos of them looking at me with murderous intent… After buying what will ultimately cause my untimely death later this year, I took the train back to the hotel and called it a night.

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Thailand – Day 2 (Chiang Mai)

I was still pretty beat from the trip over so I snoozed my alarm that went off at 9am and didn’t wake up until housekeeping came knocking at 10:30. At which point I finally got up, showered, and headed out the door. My first stop was Wat Phantao, but it was under renovation so there wasn’t too much to see. Next stop was Wat Chedi Luang, but they wanted a fee to get in and women weren’t allowed inside the temple buildings. Kinda dumb to have to pay a full fee but only get to do half the stuff because you were born with a vagina, so I took some pictures of the outside and left. I ain’t up for that full priced misogyny even if it is cultural. On my way to the next stop, I passed by a pad thai place so I took a seat and had some delicious chicken pad thai and hydrated up, then continued to Wat Phra Singh and this one was really cool. You could go into all the areas, everything was covered with gold plate/leaf, and some of their statues and buildings dated from around 700 years ago. They also had these plaques with popular wisdoms and phrases all over the place that were neat to walk through and read, plus they had temple cats to pet. The next stop was a little over a mile away and in the 90+ degree heat I didn’t feel like walking so I took one of those “crash waiting to happen” red taxi zippy cars to Wat Suan Dok. At that temple, the buildings with the relics were are all painted pure white, with the gold plated main temple and pagoda on one side. The contrast was really stunning, and I paid the fee to get in the temple to see their three massive Buddha statues. The monks were all out walking around too, but I wasn’t sure if taking pictures of them was allowed so I didn’t, but man there are a LOT of them in this city. While I was walking around there were a few other smaller temples I stopped in too, but I didn’t catch all of their names. After Suan Dok, I decided it was time to go back to the hotel to cool down for an hour before I went for my night tours, and I eventually found a red taxi of death back to the hotel.

The Full Moon Company small group tour picked me up at my hotel, and drove us first to Wat Umong Suan Phutthatham which was built about 630 years ago, and wasn’t much to look at outside since war, earthquakes, and typhoons had worn everything down or collapsed it. But underground were a series of tunnels and temples for the monks to get around and meditate in absolute dark and silence, once only lit up by candles. There were elaborate decorations and paintings on the walls in the past, and some of the frescos were still there since they were in the dark so long. Our final stop was Wat Doi Suthep, the temple on the mountain, following a little zig-zaggy road all the way up. Our group decided to be lazy and take the tram up to the top rather than going up the 306 step naga stairway, and we spent about 45 minutes walking around, taking pictures, enjoying the gorgeous city views from that elevation, and completing our three laps around the pagoda before making a wish per tradition. The only other single traveling girl and I opted to walk down the naga steps rather than take the tram down, and I guess the line for the tram was long because we all ended up getting down to the base at about the same time. The drive back to the hotel was uneventful, although there was a very nice older German man in the group and we were yapping about cameras, and how travel has changed with social media and cell phones, and how much we all hated Trump (everyone joined in on that topic, there was a consensus between the German, Singapore, Philippines and Thai folks and they kept looking at me to explain and I was just like…I don’t fucking know. Hate and fear are powerful, I guess.) Anyway, tomorrow is elephant day, gotta get up EARLY in the morning…somehow.