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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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Japan – Day 12 (off to Osaka!)

I woke up already feeling a bit burnt out, so I decided today was going to be one of those “do nothing but you’re really doing something” type of days. I laid in bed for a while, then got up and strolled over to Starbucks for a mocha and chocolate chunk scone, and sat and people watched for a while. I headed back to the hotel and packed up, and my plan was to do more stuff in Kyoto but I decided I kinda would rather just get over to Osaka before the trains got too packed. So I ditched my plans and hopped on the train (which ended up being packed anyway because this is Japan!) That left me with no plans at all, so after dropping off my suitcase at the hotel I pulled up Google Maps to see what was around within walking distance. There was a local park, Ogimachi Park, just a 10 minute walk to the north, so I decided to take a walk north. The park isn’t a tourist destination, it’s for locals, so there’s a walking path and a big empty dirt/gravel area in the middle where kids were playing soccer, families were playing catch and badminton, friends were tossing Frisbees, and a high school or young college age dance troop was practicing their routines.

I parked myself in the shade under a tree (it was a gorgeous, sunny 70 degree day with a light breeze), pulled out my much neglected book, and watched the dancers practice in between chapters. There was about 40 of them, and they first started with a full routine they all knew that was loud, energetic, and really fun looking. When I say dance troop I’m not talking about jazz or ballet, this was like acrobatic dancing with flared hands, high jumps, whipping their heads back, twisting and turning, every part of their body moving into the next step…like dancing and gymnastics rolled into one. It was really cool to watch their performance and practice their new routine. When traveling, I can get so wrapped up in the GO GO GO of it all that I forget to just sit and appreciate where I am, and have gratitude for the experience I’m having. This was one of those moments where I was having more fun just sitting in the dirt watching these kids having a blast than I’ve had the past two days walking 15km+ knocking out tourist hot spots, and I really needed that moment without even realizing I needed it. After an hour or so of practicing their new routine I pulled out my camera to record because honestly they were just SO into it and it was really funny, and one of them saw me recording and called me out so a bunch of them turned to wave and did their next practice round with EXTRA energy for my benefit which was cute. It instantly put me in a great mood that lasted for the rest of the day. After sitting in the park reading and watching for a couple hours it was time to officially check into my hotel, so I walked back and got my room.

Now, back in the day I really wasn’t a fan of Osaka. There were so many people, and they were so rushed, and I found them to be really rude compared to Kyoto, and I hated the crowds, so I tried to avoid it. But there was one thing that I went there for specifically, and that was the ribs at Hard Rock Café. Man, those ribs would just fall off the bone they were so good! So that was the first thing I looked up, and I noticed they were not where they used to be and I was a bit worried that maybe they’d changed a lot over the years. Regardless, I took the train over and ordered ribs. My worries were unfounded, the meat practically fell of the bone just like I remembered and it was delicious, still some of the best ribs I’ve ever had. After eating basically noodles and rice for a week some real meat was appreciated! The good thing about their new location is they’re on a main street, which just happens to be having their Festival of Lights. It’s similar to Chicago how they put lights on all of the trees and bushes and stuff for the holiday season, except instead of just a mile stretch with all white lights they do about a 3 mile stretch with different colored lights. I only walked the mile from Hard Rock Café to Dotonbori, and the lights were a rainbow of colors in that section.

Once at Dotonbori, which could be called Food Lovers Heaven since it’s like half a mile of straight restaurants, street food, and bars, I found the Glico Man and the giant creepy moving crab again. As I was strolling through, I noticed a boat tour was about to leave so I grabbed a ticket and jumped on that because, why not? It was a short ride, but gave an interesting 360 view of the Dotonbori shopping area. It’s on my list to eat both fugu (poisonous blowfish) and crab while I’m here since that’s what this area is most known for, but after eating my weight in bbq meat a couple hours prior I wasn’t hungry at all. So I jumped on the subway back to the hotel and called it a night.

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Japan – Day 11 (Kyoto)

Today was a pretty lucky, good day. The two buses I took showed up on time and got me where I needed to be, I somehow managed to get to all of my locations in between tourist buses (and I didn’t get hit by one like yesterday), and didn’t feel rushed at all for anything. Things just worked out. I was tired after yesterday so I slept in a little and headed out around 9am. Since I didn’t finish the northeast quadrant of Kyoto a couple days ago, I decided to pick up where I left off along the Philosopher’s Path at Eikan Temple. This place was pretty jammed, and the fact they were letting mega buses into the historically pedestrian walkway was stupid. If you don’t have the parking facilities for these dumb things you need to just ban them and send them somewhere else. At $10 to enter and hundreds of people per hour, the temple is making plenty of money without the bus tourists. But, that’s not my decision, and I already ranted about that yesterday, so I went inside and wandered around.

Eikan is a temple I never really got to when I lived here, it just never really interested me and was always crowded, so I figured I’d go see it now. It’s a pretty place, the momiji were everywhere and totally gorgeous. The walk inside the buildings and the little museum they send you through is neat too, they have quite a few artifacts and scrolls and really old books you can look at. The garden is also nice, and there was a walk up to the top of a hill with a pagoda that offered a nice view of the area. I ran into yet another couple from Chicagoland, which was funny, they are the third or fourth ones. It really is a small world.

After Eikan I got back on the Philosopher’s Path and stopped at Kumano Nyakuoji Shrine, just a little thing off to the side of the road. The Philosopher’s Path is full of little temples and shrines like this, but I didn’t stop in all of them. The good thing about the Philosopher’s Path is that along the mile or so long stretch there are only really tourists on the ends where the major temples are, the middle is mostly residents. Like everything else, there were far more tourists this time than before, but it was still manageable and I moved at a stroll pace to hear the birds, watch the fish and ducks, and admire the leaves and fall flowers both still on the trees and floating gently down the canal. When I got to the end of the path at Ginkakuji it occurred to me that I forgot to stop at an ATM to get cash and I only had 500 yen left with me. I rolled the dice and walked up, and lucky again the fee to enter was 500 yen so I didn’t have to double back and walk a mile to get money.

Ginkakuji itself isn’t all that remarkable, but the gardens around it are spectacular. I spent a good hour wandering around and admiring the nature around it. This place wasn’t my favorite as a 20-something, but I appreciate it now as an older person with bad knees. After leaving Ginkakuji (and passing three separate huge tourists groups coming up on my way down!) I only had to wait a little while for the bus to take me to the 7-11 near my hotel, but where it dropped me off was a Family Mart that happened to have an international ATM, so I didn’t have to walk all the way over to 7-11 then double back to Sanjusangendo. Funny thing about Sanjusangendo, this was a place that both times I was here before, for 14ish months I kept saying I needed to go there, but then somehow for some reason I never got to go. Wash and repeat at least 20 times, when I last left in 2004 I STILL hadn’t gone to this frikkin’ place even though it looked cool. So I made it a point today to go there, finally. It was pretty cool, although I think I appreciated it more now than I probably would have back then. The 1,000 statues are amazingly detailed, each one is different: different eyes, eyebrows (one had a gigantic unibrow), jewelry, what they’re holding, facial hair, you name it. So even though they look like they’re exactly the same at first glance, when you look closer you can appreciate allll of the little details. The 28 guardian statues were super interesting to read about, and the wind and thunder god statues at the end were neat (the thunder god if you kneel to it and look up its eyes turn thi bright orange-yellow color and no matter where you move they follow you and it’s kind of creepy but neat). The back side has a lot of information and artifacts from the 850 year history of the building, the largest wood building in Japan they say, and was interesting to read. I wandered the grounds for a little bit, then stopped at McDonalds for food, then headed back to the hotel early. As is becoming my tradition here, I showered and jumped in the soaking tub, and now I’m chilling and watching sumo wrestling on NHK. I really like sumo wrestling, there’s so much strategy to it and so much ceremony and pomp. Anywho, off to Osaka tomorrow!