I was still feeling run down from surfing the crimson wave, so I slept in and dozed in bed until it was time to get up and head to Kyoto. Today I got to meet a longtime friend in Japan, Etsuko! I met her a couple times while I was there before, and we’ve kept in touch on Facebook. We went to Starbucks for coffee and to chat about life for a while, then went to the station up to a really delicious tempura restaurant for lunch. Then we wandered around the station to look at all the Christmas lights, the tree, and went up to the two gardens up top. It was a really nice, relaxing few hours catching up with a marvelous person.
It started to rain as we went to the trains, so instead of staying in Kyoto and walking around in the cold and wet, I decided to go back to Osaka. On my way back to the hotel I discovered a shopping district street I hadn’t explored yet, so I took a walk down the shopping street and got a strawberry and chocolate parfait. Ice cream in Japan is next level, it’s so thick and creamy here. I went back to the hotel and ate some of the fruits and snacks Etsuko gave me, took a long hot bath, and worked on photos and journal stuff for a while. Now I’m going to bed early because man I’m tired!
Today was the opposite of yesterday, I guess I forgot to close my window before I fell asleep last night so I woke up at 5am freezing and with the morning delivery truck making noise outside. I couldn’t get back to sleep. When my alarm went off at 6am I went ahead and got up, showered, and out the door. I took the bullet train to Himeji, and walked over to one of the biggest and most gorgeous castles in Japan, in my opinion.
Himeji Castle is more of a spring castle, there are so many old cherry trees around it that during sakura season you can barely breathe there are so many people here, and that was 15 years ago so I can’t imagine it now! In the fall there’s not so much of a crowd, but it’s still gorgeous. I walked way up to the top floor, then back down and all around the outside, then back in to the side buildings and corridors. Then I went next door to Koko-en garden, which is definitely gorgeous during the fall with momiji, waterfalls, gigantic koi bigger than I’ve ever seen before, and mini-themed garden patches all hooked up in a maze. I hadn’t been there before, so it took me about an hour to get to it all. I walked through the shopping streets on my way back to the station, and went back to Osaka.
Since I couldn’t eat crab last night I made a reservation for tonight, and put on my comfy pants and a t-shirt and headed to Dotonbori to get fat. It was $50 all you can eat snow crab legs within 90 minutes, they also had a full buffet of other foods and you could order everything from raw crab (crab sashimi) to crab tempura. Well, 90 minutes was plenty of time, and I had to be practically rolled out of there. I’m probably solely responsible for the deaths of like 8 crabs tonight! All I wanted to do after eating that much was go lay in bed, and sleep early, so that’s the plan!
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.
