A Nara Trip Away...Oh Deer

It's a new month! And apart from coming up with truly terrible puns for post titles, and suggesting I should marry both Ami and Yumi, I've also been on a magical trip to Nara and Osaka in Kansai! There's lots of photos this time, it was very hard to cut them down...

I got the magical Shinkansen to Osaka on friday night, straight from work. A mere 40 minutes later I arrived in the bewildering Shin-Osaka station, from where I got a succession of even more bewildering, jam-packed trains to my friend Laura's stop, between Osaka and Nara. Osaka is even more full of mayhem than Tokyo; it's Japan's second-largest city, and unlike Tokyo all of its shiny nightlife is concentrated in one area, Minami (Osaka's two clearly defined areas of activity are imaginatively called 'Kita', north, and 'Minami', south). Adding to the confusion is the fact that there are three train company's operating in Kansai; this means that Minami has three main stations, all with very similar names- JR Namba, Kintetsu Namba and Nankai Namba- and all are obscenely busy. Anyway (moving on from the train talk), the next day we went to beautiful Nara, Japan's no.2 cultural place after Kyoto. Nara really is a treasure; jam-packed with pagoda's and Buddhist temples. The best part of all however is the large park to the north of the city, which really reminded me of National Trust sites; large areas of grass where people could have picnics (in most of Japan's 'gardens' you can't sit on the grass), and deer wandering around. The deer even wait and only cross the road when there's a green light! They also bow to you when you feed them biscuits if you bow to them first- it's so cool!

We wandered around the main area, then had lunch back in Nara at a decent place that did teriyaki burgers, Korean hotpots and all sorts of other stuff. The highlight in terms of tourist attractions in Nara is Tódai-ji Daibatsu-den, the largest wooden building in the world. It's a massive structure, which was rebuilt in the Edo period and is only 2/3 of the original buildings size! Inside are all sorts of Buddhist-related things, including statues of scary people and a big buddha. It lacked the mysticism of the big buddhist temple I went to in Beijing, but was pretty impressive. There was also a hole in one of the wooden pillars that's meant to be the exact size of Buddha's nostril. If you can squeeze through you are apparently ensured of enlightenment; que lots of parents pushing their young children through the hole! Feeling pretty enlightened already, I decided to give it a miss.

The best thing about Nara, as far as I was concerned, was simply wandering around the large park where there were friendly deer everywhere; however we also took time-out to doze in Isui-en Koen (garden), where I experienced the Japanese 'wabi-sabi', which Michiko Manabe has been trying to explain to me! It's an apparently untranslatable term relating to the combination of artificial order and natural beauty in Japanese and Chinese gardens. It was a beautiful place, where (without wanting to sound too Zen) you could really feel at peace; if I lived close-by I'd like to think I'd try and relax and read books there as often as possible.

Luckily for us it was a really sunny day, perhaps one of the last days of summer. As we headed back to the north of the park, we found that there was a junior high choir playing in front of the Daibatsu-den. They were so sweet! They played a song about how much they loved Osaka, then all did silly dances; you could almost hear the crowd collectively going 'awww!'. Towards the end of the day we headed to the north of the park, where there are two temples. Nigatsu-dó was the nicest, and probably my favourite
of the whole place. Built into the hillside, it had ornate wooden carvings all around it, and as we arrive in the late afternoon the sun was setting at a perfect time; it was one of the most beautiful views I've seen so far in Japan.

We had a few drinks in Osaka that evening, but lacking a big crowd I couldn't really go crazy like I wanted to! It certainly brought back the 'Tokyo buzz' though; I really can't wait to get back to Tokyo, it's so full of energy!

On Sunday we shopped in Osaka, around Minami and then around Kita, where my regular, slow train back to Okayama went from. I got some bargainous deals in some clothes shops, while we found a couple of food halls that reminded me of Selfridges and Rackhams! There was some pretty tasty-looking stuff, though I must say I'm missing humous more than anything else; I can't find it anywhere!

The train-ride back was slow and boring; Kobe is really close to Osaka though, and having seen the two now I'd really love to live in Kobe. Its a city, with shiny city things, yet also relaxed and pleasant. It's close to the mayhem of Osaka, and not too far from the cultural centres of Kyoto and Nara. Not that Okayama is bad though; as my good friend Pip says, you can't spell Okayama without Okay! Plus where I live is close to the glorious Inland Sea, a beautiful area that's already close to my heart.