Nara, Temples and Deer

With Soph finally back in Japan and having finally moved into our new apartment (more on this later maybe?) we decided it was high time we got out there and did the tourist thing again. So when our friends in Nara invited us out for dinner at their place we decide to make a day of it and go see Todaiji Temple and Nara Park as well.

Nara is a lot greener than both the cities of Kyoto and Osaka, with a large open parkland connecting the various temples and museums its famous for. This leads many of my students, particulary the ones from Osaka, to declare Nara to be "the country". Which is a bit like calling your backyard "the country" because it has more trees than the car-park across the road.

Never the less Nara was really impressive. There were two big items on our sightseeing list. One was Todaiji Temple, a massive wooden temple that houses one of the largest bronze buddha statues in the world. At my guess I'd say it was about three or four stories tall with a huge gold-leaf covered background behind it (I always feel odd taking photos inside temples, even when its obvious you can, so I didn't take any of the massive buddha. But Soph did, so maybe she'll upload some photos later)


Todaiji Temple
The other thing Nara is famous for is its deer which roam freely throught Nara Park and can be found pretty much everywhere you go. Though they're most numerous wherever there are vendors selling shika-senbei (deer biscuits). As far as we could tell the way it works is you buy the deer biscuits, then stand there as the deer proceed to mob you until you have no more biscuits left at which point they lose interest and move onto their next victim. Not bad value for 150yen we thought.


Left: Sophie being mobbed by deer. Right: Clinton not being mobbed by deer.
We spent the rest of our time there wandering around the various other temples and parkland that connects them until we had to go. There was probably quite a bit we didn't get to see, so I'm looking forward to going back there again sometime.


This is us with a tile we donated to help with the restoration of the Todaiji Temple roof, they allow you to write your names and "a message for world peace" on them so it has our names written in Katakana down each side and the Kanji for harmony in the centre.

Hiking in Kobe

This Wednesday I'll be heading off to Tokyo for five days, but I figure before I do that I should post about a little trip I had to Kobe a few weeks ago and maybe get this blog back into gear again.


It was a fantastic Spring day, so I took the opportunity to get a few snaps of the Cherry Blossom trees in bloom.

I'd been meaning to visit Kobe for ages but had never gotten around to it. So on what turned out to be an absolutely stunning weekend I headed out there to find out what Kobe has to offer. I arrived shortly after midday and immediately made in the direction of the Shin Kobe Cable Car that runs up the mountain behind the train station. My plan was to purchase a one way ticket up the mountain and then walk back down to the station. An easy thirty minute walk according to Lonely Planet. That was the plan anyway.


The view going up in the cable car was impressive if a bit smoggy at times, that didn't stop me taking a ridiculous amount of pictures though.


After arriving at the top I was faced with two choices. Pay 200 yen and walk down through the Nuno-biki Herb Garden or take the free hiking trail instead. Now I'd seen this herb garden from the cable car and it did look rather nice it was a bit tame. Paved walkways, manicured gardens, wheelchair access, souvenir shops, etc. It was a bit of a tourist trap.
"No" I thought. I am a man, a man of action a man of adventure and definitely not the sort of man who goes traipsing through herb gardens! Besides, knowing Japan "hiking trail" probably just means a slightly narrower paved path that gently winds down the mountain. Right?

Wrong. Hiking trails here are exactly the same as back home. Very narrow dirt tracks with bits of wodod stretched across them at odd intervals to give the impression of stairs or just to give you something to trip over. But I wasn't worried, I was walking down hill. The path, while steep, was easy to follow and I'd be back down at the station in no time.

Then I cam across the awesome bridge. I really wish I had bothered to take a photo of this bridge (I took soooo many others). It was the sort of bridge that makes you want to know whats on the other side. Crossing it would mean taking a detour from the trail back to the station, but I figured it could only be about 10 or 20 minutes extra so I dashed across it see where its path lead.

Shortly after crossing the bridge the path started winding back up mountain. No worries I thought, it's probably just leading to some awesome look out point just a bit further on. The path kept getting steeper and steeper and I kept heading further and further up the mountain. It was tough going. After a while I started passing small sign posts reminding me that in case of heart attack Japan's emergency number is 119. Despite feeling like I may have gotten in over my head I kept on going regardless, convinced there had to be something at the end of this trail.


A sign your casual stroll might not be so casual anymore...

Half an hour later I found out I was now following a different, not so well maintained and more difficult trail back to the station. One that connected up with some of the more serious hiking trails that covered the mountain. Well at least I'd get back to civilisation, it just wasn't going to be the cakewalk I'd expected.


It may have been tough going, but it was a great walk. There is something quite odd about wandering through moutain forest but still being able to see the outlines of 60 odd storey skyscrapers peaking out from behind the trees every so often.

I got back to civilisation sometime before 4pm. This adventure taking somewhat longer than I had originaly intended I had just enough time to grab a coffee and something to eat and then go for a quick wander through Kobe's "Foreign Town". Which isn't particularly interesting if you're foreigner (it's like a European version of Chinatown). Then it was back on the train and back to Osaka.

Osaka Nights!

Dave visited Osaka this week and while his days were spent sightseeing around the Kansai area on his lonesome as I was working, we did manage to catch up most evenings for a few drinks and what have you ("what have you " generally being more drinks). So instead of pictures of us in front of temples and beautiful japanese scenery most of the photos I have are of us out-on-the-town in Shinsaibashi. Here are some of the shenanigans that took place...


We played an AWFUL lot of darts, so much so by end of the week we were getting pretty good. These photos were taken before then.


Drinking. We did quite a bit of that too.


Simply stopping to check your map in Shinsaibashi can have hilarious consequences.


Deciding to combine drinking, darts and Japan in to a single package I took Dave to a local darts bar named "Bull" that I often go to. Here our lack of Japanese skills and the fact that it was 3am at the time resulted in this photo. We think it may have been someone's birthday... we're not sure.

Other highlights of the week included...
- Getting our arses handed to us when we tried to play Street Fighter 4 and Tekken 6 as we couldn't find the "Please don't randomly match me up against other players in the arcade who are ten times better than me" button.
- Seeing the sights of Den-Den-Town (but NOT going to a Maid Cafe cos it would have been WEIRD).
- Watching an English Improv comedy show (The Pirates of Dotonbori) on Sunday night then proceeding to stay out till first trains at 5AM.
- Failing to go to Kobe the following Monday as we nursed our hangovers.

By now Dave has left Osaka, but I'll hopefully be catching up with him tomorrow night in Kyoto for one last night out before he heads off to Tokyo.

Castles and Bikes - Clinton in Himeji

Well it's been a while, but I figure its now time to get this blog up and running again. Sophie may be back in Australia, but I'm still here and there's no sense wasting an opportunity to take yourself off to some part of the world you've never been to. In this case that part of the world was Himeji, a small-ish(?) city a little more than an hours train ride from Osaka. Himeji is famous for it's World Heritage listed castle that was built around 1580 and this was the reason that I made the journey out there.



Upon arrival in Himejii I put my guide-book to immediate use and set about tracking down the free bicycle hire place promised by Lonely Planet. I figured this would be a cool way to get myself from the station to the castle. But while I was indeed able to hire a bike at the station it turned out I needed to walk halfway to the castle to actually pick the bike up. Which kinda half-defeated the point of hiring a bike in the first place.

Never-the-less I was undaunted. Himeji City Hire Bike #14, or "Trusty" as I came to call him, was going to ferry me around town for the rest of the day regardless of the relatively short distance. Which was just as well for Trusty who was probably only a few weeks away from dropping the 'T' from his name altogether. The bald tires, the rear brakes that screamed liked a banshee and front brakes that kinda worked were not helping either. But then again I hadn't ridden a bike for a long time, and while it is true that you never really forget how to ride a bike you can get much worse at it.


My steed for the day, "Trusty" #14, together we made the streets of Himeji just that little bit less safe.

Himeji Castle is pretty much the best example of a Japanese castle I've come across. Sure, its only the second Japanes castle I've visited, but Osaka Castle is more like a fancy old building dropped in the middle of a public park. Himeji looks like the real deal, its just so... Castle-ly.

I mean just look at some of these pictures...


The rear entrance to the castle.



From the main courtyard, looking toward the front of the castle.



The view from the top of the castle looking down on Himeji.

I took about 112 photos that day, 95% of them were of this castle. There is just so much castle there and I don't think I even saw all of it! By the time I left I was starting to feel a little castle-ed out. So I sat myself down in the park nearby, drank some truly awful vending machine coffee before returning "Trusty" to the City of Himeji and hopping on a train back to Osaka. A day well spent.

REAL Big Fish!

Alright! Happy 2009 everyone!
Due to family commitments, our winter break hasn't been quite as adventuresome as we'd originally planned. But yesterday we went to Osaka Aquarium. Get ready for some extreeeeeeeme fish!
(My camera's not very good in low light, so the photos are a bit fail, I'm afraid.)

Osaka Aquarium (or Kaiyuukan, for those of you interested in the lingo) is allegedly the biggest in the world, but its main claim to fame seems to be the two whale sharks it houses. It has a lot of other stuff too. Like otters, and a sloth! I don't think sloths are even properly aquatic. I guess they swim somethimes? I don't know. As far as sloths go, this one doesn't seem to have got the memo about being slothy - it was hanging from the top of its cage, rocking on like someone who's got their mp3 player up to loud and has forgotten everyone can see them dancing.

Never mind that, I'll cut to the chase. Here's a whale shark:

Cool, huh?
And here's another one:

Seriously awesome to see in action. As was the ginormerous manta ray:

It's hard to tell the scale in that picture, but I guess the ray was about three metres across. So beautiful. I love rays, there's something very serene about them. But that wasn't my favourite thing...

Do you know what a sunfish is? Go and look it up on Wikipedia. I've always wanted to see one, because they are freaky. I was pretty stoked when I heard there were sunfish at Osaka Aquarium. Here's one:

It came right up to the glass and blooped at me. That was pretty cool, being face to face with a sunfish.
In the same tank as the sunfish, there were some octopi. Here's what underneath an octopus looks like:

Those eight-legs move along pretty quick! It kind of pours itself accross the glass, like a liquid made of legs.
Speaking of animals that are mostly made of legs, they had some of those crazy Japanese crabs, as well. For some reason, I felt like they should have been dancing in a chorus line. With little hats and canes, right? (Please tell me you see it too...)

Also, there was a very nice jellyfish display. True, it's not an exciting photo, but I love the colours.

Nearby the aquarium is a big-arse Ferris wheel - also allegedly the largest in the world, at 112 metres high. The Ferris wheel was pretty cool, and we timed our visit just right, because the sun was going down and the city lights had just come on. Here's a view down onto the aquarium from the wheel. It's the building with the green lights around the top and the big white triangle in front:

So, I'll leave you with some random Osaka, as seen from the Ferris wheel. The aquarium is in the bottom right corner there, and to the left (right in the middle of the bottom) is the Suntory Museum, which I suspect we may be going back to another day...

Pictures from Kyoto

This weekend was a long weekend in Japan thanks to some sort of public holiday or another, so Soph and I headed off to Kyoto in search of culture and coffee (respectively). Despite the massive holiday crowds I'm happy to report the venture was a success, we visited two big buddihist temples, wandered down winding alleys packed with people and cool little japanese shops, saw numerous geisha being ferried about in rickshaws and found and awesome cafe that served great coffee.

Oh, and I took heaps of photo's, here are a few of them....




This is Kiyomizu Temple and it was packed full of people when we were there. It seems that long weekends are a popular time to visit the temple and pray for good luck and what have you. But it's also a really popular sightseeing spot, resulting in a chaotic mix of tourism and spirituality thats quite a sight to behold.




A nice elderly couple offered to take this photo, so we let them. They asked us if we were Italian and when we said we were from Australia the lady was sooooo impressed she shook my hand.




Sometimes when I take photos I like to see just how much "Japan" I can fit in one shot. I'm pretty happy with the result here.




Oh yeah, Autumn in Kyoto is kinda a big deal and people love to take photos of the colourful foilage. I saw one guy rip through almost an entire role of film on just one tree, I mean come on... just get a digital camera already.




Yeah, so... this is a tower, it's in Kyoto above a hotel.... That's pretty much it.

The Photo Edition

We've had a big week, as it was our first week actually teaching students. It went pretty well. It's quite scary, but we're getting the hang of it.

Today we organised to have internet connected at our flat. It won't happen for a month, though. Once it does things should get more interesting around here... Who knows, maybe Clinton will even post!

Anyway, here are some photos, largely pertaining to the first post...

Clinton playing shamisen

Samurai!

Spiderzilla!
(Unfortunately, the council came and trimmed the bushes, so Spiderzilla is no more.)

Clinton and 280 yen yakitori (mmmmm, tasty)

Hmmm....

(We saw this in Amerkiamura, a place I shall have to go into great detail about later.)

I'd like to conclude by apologising for the formatting of this post. The blogspot editor is crummy.