Nara

With feet that were about to fall off, I opted to go to Nara today since its sights seem to be all clustered together. However, instead of saving some foot energy, I wasted some right off the bat.

Instead of asking for directions when I got out at the JR Nara Station, I just started walking south, munching away on one of my baked goods for breakfast. It didn't dawn on me to ask someone until I got to a 7-Eleven realized that there hasn't been a single white person in sight. Sure enough, I should've been heading north, then turn east to get to Nara Park from the train station. Thankfully, the 7-Eleven staff was quite nice and pointed me to the right direction; she wanted me to take the bus, but I opted to walk instead like I always do (and I wonder why my feet were aching?!). And I really should get a darn compass so that I don't make these kinds of mistakes again.

Ahh, Nara. It was yet another city that was much calmer than Tokyo. My first stop after a long walk from the train station was Kofuku-ji Temple with its 50-meter-high five-story pagoda. I already started missing Kei with her DSLR because my camera can't really do these shots justice. After seeing more free-wandering deer, I headed over to Todai-ji Temple with the Daibutsu-den (Great Buddha Hall), "57 meters long and 50 meters wide, making it the world's largest wooden structure. The hall enshrines a huge statue of the great Buddha. Weighing approximately 300 tons and standing some 15 meters tall, it is the largest Buddha statue in the world." Unfortunately, since the hall was dimly lit, my pictures of the Buddha was subpar. Sadness.

There were lots of school girls around, wearing their school uniforms, and whenever I would see one I swear that the Sailor Moon theme song kept popping in my head (...Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight...Never running from a real fight, she is the one named Sailor Moon...).

Before I left for my trip, Ed's sister-in-law kept telling me to go to the Omizutori, Water-Drawing Festival, when in Nara. However, I arrived in Japan way after the festival so I had to settle for just dropping by the Nigatsu-do Hall and imagine what that place might have looked like a few weeks earlier. The hall overlooks a cliff so it was nice to get fresh air and cool down from all the walking.

Further up was Mt. Kasuga-yama where the school girls ate their lunch. The very green hill, also the sight of the yearly grass burning festival, was a great backdrop against the very blue uniforms of the girls.

At Kasuga-taisha Shrine, another World Heritage Site, there were a million lanterns along the path. I do wonder what all these places look like at night, but I know that my chances of getting lost is much higher when it's dark; heck, it's usually daylight and I'm often treading the wrong path already. ;P

By 1pm, I started working my way back to the train station at a pitstop to eat a tendon in the city center. I also dropped by the local Starbucks to find a Nara mug, but unfortunately, there was none to be found.

I already knew which direction the train station was so I decided to take some of the little side streets along the way instead of walking along the main road that I took earlier in the day. I always love doing this because you get to see how the locals live. This is also the reason why I hate guided tours because you're always just looking out of a window instead of actually rubbing elbows with the people that actually make the place what it is. And just like Hiroshima, I do like Nara better than Tokyo. It's small town Japan and more laid back.

By 2:30pm, I was already on a train heading back to Osaka. I was going to make a stop at Horyuji for the Horyuji Temple, but I really think that the last 13 days have taken a toll on me: I wanted rest instead of adventure.

When I got back to Osaka, I had planned to take a short rest, do my laundry, then head back out to explore the area of my hotel. However, a sucky thing happened.

After paying more for doing my laundry in Osaka than in Seoul, it didn't seem like any soap actually dispensed out of the washing machine like it should've and after 30 minutes in the dryer, my clothes were barely dry. When I took them out of the dryer, they weren't even hot. So instead of spending another round of yen for another cycle, I grudgingly brought my clothes to my room and tried to figure out how to hang them in my room with only two hangers around.

With no jeans or socks, I couldn't go out for the night like I had intended since I only had my khaki skirt and flip-flops on. So, I just headed over to the Yoshinoya across the street for dinner and called it a night. Unfortunately, when I got there, they didn't have a vending machine so ordering was a little trickier than usual. "Gyudon...take-out." Plus, all the seats were taken by men and one of them who looked quite sleazy was looking me up and down. Eww.

By 7pm, I was already twiddling my thumbs, trying to figure out how to entertain myself. The TV in my room only had a handful of crappy channels, none of which were in English. Ugh! But then again, I did wish for rest and sure enough, I got some tonight.