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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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Grand Teton National Park: Part 2

After the long days on Tuesday and Wednesday I was pretty wiped out.  I slept in until 7ish, and I don’t know if I’m just getting used to it or what but it didn’t seem nearly as cold and I slept pretty well in my blanket cocoon.  I went and got a late breakfast, then changed into already dirty clothes and drove over to the trail ride area.  I rode a lovely, big, brown and black horse named “Ed” with the lady that works at the convenience store, Tanya the waitress, and Christine the horse guide.  We rode on the backwoods trails at a leisurely pace and saw a mule deer and her two babies, a great view of the mulberry creek/wetland area, and the woods that burned back in 2016 and is regrowing.  While we were riding I kept noticing these old large stickup groundwater monitoring wells.  I asked Christine if this area had been used for anything other than the lodge or park in the past, and she said the area used to be an old military area.  That made sense, and would explain why they were/had been monitoring the ground water.  She didn’t know what I was talking about so I pointed out the wells and told her they were probably monitoring for metals, but they were so rusted probably not anymore.  Christine laughed about that because people had been asking her for a while what those were but she didn’t know, now she knows!  Once you start doing environmental work you can’t stop doing it, even on vacation.  In the wetland areas I was still finding myself trying to identify and mentally delineate them. 

After the ride I took a shower to get the horse stank off me, then spent time backing up photos and clearing space on SD cards.  It was almost 2pm by the time I got out of the campgrounds and drove south towards the Grand Tetons.  I stopped at Signal Point and drove up the mountain to a gorgeous view and spoke a little Japanese with a Japanese tourist family, and on my way back down there was a mule deer right next to the road eating. Further down, a full grown bull elk was laying down maybe 50 feet off the road.  I pulled over, of course, and got my telephoto lens out and got some great pictures.  There were two wildlife management officers right there directing people to move closer, or away, or left, or right, depending on what the elk was doing but the elk didn’t seem to care about the people at all.  Eventually he crossed the road and headed off into the woods. 

I continued down to Jenny Lake, and I was going to take the ferry over and climb up to Hidden Falls and Inspiration point, but by this point it was almost 5pm and the weather couldn’t figure out if it wanted to rain or stay sunny.  Given that my feet were already blistered and hurting, I didn’t think I really wanted to hike uphill for 1.5 miles in the rain, so I took a pass on the ferry and wandered the lake perimeter checking out all the cool mountain rocks for about an hour.  Then I went up to Jackson Lodge, which was so busy by the time I found a parking spot I decided to just skip it and go up to Colter Bay Lodge.  This one was calmer, and had their own rock beach, so I again walked up and down the rock beach looking at rocks and enjoying the view. 

Eventually around 7pm I got hungry, so I went up to the marina just north of Colter Bay where the Lodge staff had all been praising the pizza at Leek’s Pizzeria.  To be fair, it was pretty good, especially considering the other options in the area.  You get tired of sandwiches and salads after a few days so a super cheesy greasy pizza really hit the spot.  After eating I wandered across to the marina to watch the sun set and then headed back north to the Lodge.  I stopped by the main lodge to get online for a bit and use the bathroom, and when I came back out noticed lightning coming out from the south, struggling to get over the mountains.  A big group of us sat in the parking lot watching the extreme “War of the Worlds” level light show as the storm made its way over the mountains and towards us.  At first it was just impressive flashes with no sound at all, but once it got over the mountains the thunder was SUPER loud, and once it got too close for comfort I hopped back in my car and went to the camper cabin.  I stood outside chatting with neighbors (and petting their dogs) and watching the light show for another half hour or so before it started to rain and we all ran inside.  When it started raining it rained HARD with almost constant lightning and thunder.  It was pretty cool! Definitely glad I was in the camper cabin and not a tent!