Nara: Big Buildings and Big Budda

After a wonderous night of tasty food and good company, it was early to rise for a trip to Nara. While Kyoto gets all the love, and tourists, for being the old Capital of Japan, Nara was actually the first permanent capital, established in 710. I specify permanent because previous to Nara becoming the capital, according to Shinto belief, every time the emperor died a new capital had to be established. Even with the altering of that particular rule, Nara did not remain the capital for long. However it was capital long enough to get several temples and building worthy of becoming World Heritige sites.

One of those sites, and the main tourist attraction, is Todai-ji. This temple is the worlds largest wooden building, and in its present incarnation has stood since 1709. However this sixteenth century reconstruction is 30% smaller than the original. Yup, its huge, absolutely enourmous, yet it is almost one third smaller than the original structure built back in 743. You can see why this is a very impressive site, (and sight!) The Bronze Budda stuatue, Daibutsu, inside is (mostly) original. It has be recast and fixed a few times, as he lost his head in an earthquake once.

If Nara is famous for one thing other than the Daibutsu, it is the hoards of pushy deer. The sacred Nara deer have been around for centuries, but in modern times they are supreme mooches and beggers. They circle tourists like sharks, waiting for a momentary weekness to reveal tasty treats. Then they pounce, using wolf pack predatory tactics, going for the kill in seconds. In the aftermath, one can only feel sorry for the poor bundle of deer crackers. Never even saw what happend! Seriously, the deer are super cute, and if not 100% tame, they have certainly lost most of the fear of humans. They shill rather relentlessly for a handout, and for 105 yen per pack of deer crackers, most tourists are more than happy to feed the little guys.

Today I'm posting a few more than the usual 5 pictures, as Nara was very photogenic, and I went rather wild with the camera.



Aww isn't he cute? Rather hungry too.



As are these guys. The peril of feeding the deer. They can smell weakness. Shortly after I took this picture, she threw down the crackers one way, and fled the other.



Todai-ji. Big huh?



Mini Statue. Still pretty sizable.



Daibutsu himself. Notice how close to the roof his head is. Think back to how high that roof is. Yikes! He is almost 15 meters tall, and he is sitting down right now.







Two other statues, I don't know what they represent, but they do look pretty cool.





The ignoble fate of the Nara Deer.
Tourist Bait! The horror.



A line of lanterns at a nearby shrine.



I have never seen a Miko wear crazy headgear like that, so I had to go into Paparazzi telephoto mode.



Awwwww



Horseback archery demonstration. The shrieks this guy made when he fired his bow were most impressive. I actually have a video of it from my camera, if anybody wants me to AIM transfer it or something.



A 5 story Pagoda. Misses out on being the tallest Pagoda, and thusly the tallest wooden building in Japan, to To-ji temple in Kyoto.

Internet Legend

As some may have noticed, along the sidebar of my blog I have a small selection of links. One of those leads to Outpostnine.com, a blog that has been kept by Azrael (Jeff) a Kyoto area JET. In it he describes the many funny, and painfully funny, situations that you come across when you are a very tall black man in the middle of Japan. He writes with such humor that I have been known to actually double over in laughter, and I am not the only one. He even got a small blurb printed in Newsweek a few months back! Attached to this blog is a messegeboard service that I post on occasionally, along with hundreds of other people, some of whom live here in Japan.

So one of the other Kyoto JETs (Josh) decided to put together a birthday party for his friend, and made it an Outpostnine get together, with people coming down to Osaka from all over Japan. Eleven people met in Osaka for the party, and so we got to meet Az, eat Mexican food, sing Karaoke, and generally have a great time. The food was great, huge plates of Mexican grub. I got the Enchilada combo and it came with two enchiladas, a taco, a taquito, quacamole, and beans. It was pure heaven.

It was nice to really get to know some of the faces behind the screen names I talk to every day. I was most shocked to see that two of the people who came down were not only women, but middle aged women to boot! I certainly didn't expect to see such a high percentage of women my Mom's age being hardcore internet geeks. Which is not to say they weren't cool, everybody was great. We had many interesting conversations, and Azrael in person was what you would expect. Funny, and a bit chagrined by his growing internet popularity.

The second half of the trip was to the ancient capital of Nara, home to the larget wooden building in the world, as well as other interesting things to see. I'll touch on that tomorrow.



The Man Himself, and another Kyoto area JET.



The group at Karoke. It is too bad we only had an hour, we really got into the swing of things.

"Kanazawa is... cold."

When I asked my Okazaki students what then knew about Kanazawa, for many of them the first reaction was to comment on the chilly winter weather. Well they were right. Kanazawa is cold. It snowed the whole first week I was here. Then the tempurature went a bit above freezing. So then it rained for a couple of days, melting most of the snow drifts. Well you will all be happy to hear that its back to snowing. I never saw weather like this in Denver, and as chilly as Aichi got, winter precipitation was rarely on the menu. Oh well, it *is* very pretty, so I can certainly live with it!

If Kanazawa is famous for two things, it is the weather and Kenrokuen. A couple of weeks ago I decided to venture out into the drifts and see for myself this "3rd most beautiful garden in Japan." I'll admit I was impressed. Its very large, indeed the area of gardens, shrines and castle remains gives Kanazawa a nicely sized green spot right in the middle of town. I hesitate to call it nature, as it is all so sculpted and modified that little in the area could be described as natural. But it is green, and growing, and beautiful. Well actually it wasn't all that green. It was more of a fluffy white color really. Still beautiful of course!

Kenrokuen is famous for the poles they use to protect the trees from Kanazawa's heavy snowfall. I have been told that the combination of the polls and the rope 'tents' with snow makes winter the best time to visit. I can understand that argument, but I have to wonder if the natural glory of spring, not to mention the finer weather and better footing, would not make that a much better season to visit. I will find out, as there is little to stop me from visiting in all four season, as often as I feel necessary.



Oyama shrine. Notice the interesting gate, a Dutch influenced design built in 1875.



Shrine near Kenrokuen.



Gaggle of people near the lanteren that is the enduring symbol of the garden. It may be cold and snowy, but that doesn't stop the crowds!



Of course I had to get nice and close and get my own shot in.



The trees in their conical protection.

Osaka: The End

I woke up to the first full day of 2006 with far too few hours of sleep. Despite this, I felt happy, and raring to go. I let Jared sleep another hour, yet that wasn't quite long enough for him, so I let him be a little while longer and headed out on my own to experience a rather unique way of celebrating the new year, the Happy Bag.

On January 1st stores in Japan bag up selections of their wares and then put the bags on sale for a fixed price. Depending on where you shop, you have either no idea or very little idea of what is actually in the bag. The only thing you know is that whatever is inside is worth at least what you paid. Often it is worth more than you paid, and there is the catch. It is sort of a combo of gambling and the thrill of opening Christmas gifts. While I was in Osaka I came to the realization that I need (Need!) two new digital cameras. A nice slim little pocket point and shoot, and a digital SLR for the more heavy duty work. While I need to save up a bit for the big one, I had some disposable income and decided to try my luck at a happy bag to see if I could get discount on a nice camera. As things turned out, I got a very nice little Fuji, and it is about half the size of my current digital. I still use my Olympus a bit, but it is very nice to have more options. I go a great price too!

Once I was back with my new toy, and happy as a clam playing with sleek Japanese technology, I headed back up to Jared's room to deliver a more persistent wake up call. We just wandered around Osaka for a while, shopping, eating, chatting before ending up at one of the coolet arcades I have every seen, Joypolis. Yes the City of Joy, home of photo booths, virtual ping pong, and linked MarioCart. I'm no stranger to Japanese arcades, but this one was a bit more high tech then most. But then it had its low tech moments. Like a super cheesy Indiana Jones knock off treasure hunt that was a total rip off. By and large however, we were filled with joy, so I guess thats truth in advertising at work!

We actually stayed up pretty late, hanging out, chatting and the like. We got up early the next morning, checked out and headed for a last crack at Osaka Castle. Luckily it was open this time, so along with a few thousand other people, we got to explore the insides. It was cool, but between my distinct lack of sleep and the crushing crowds, it wasn't really as cool as I had perhaps hoped it would be. Still worth seeing. On the way out we ran into a strange little street performance. I have no idea what was going on, but it was interesting enough, so we bought some ice cream and watched for a little while.

On the Shinkansen home Jared complained that it was too fast, he wanted more time to enjoy the trip, especially for the amount of money he paid. Some people are just never happy!



The view from my hotel room. Hello busy JR Line!



How cool is that, linked horse racing. You too can be a jockey.



Jared taking a stab at virtual ping pong. Really a fascinating bit of technology.



As we call it, the drum game, I think the actual title is Taiko no tatusjin. Something like that. The important thing is to pick a song, and drum along. Absolutly tons of fun, especially with two players.



Performers outside the castle.

Party Central? New Years Eve in Osaka.

After two days alone, Jared showed up in Osaka, the last stop of his Kansai tour. I was horribly dehydrated from too much time in the superhot saunas at Spa World, and was still nursing the headache from hell. Seriously, between the jackhammer in my skull, the trains going by the window, and the travesty that is the Japanese Pillow, I had hardly slept a wink. My mood was *not* chipper and joyous. Despite all that, I was still very glad to see Jared, at last someone to talk to! We met up with Atsushi, a student of his who is from Osaka.

The three of us just wandered around. Atsushi showed us around the city center a bit. We ate one of Osaka's more famous culinary exports, takoyaki. Takoyaki are little fried doughballs filled with boiled octopus. While I'm usually quite game at eating things. I have long avoided takoyaki because of my well known aversion to all things that have tenticles. Well I finally got over my deep seated neruosis and popped one in my mouth. It wasn't *that* bad, but I doubt I will go out of my way to eat more. We ordered two dishes though, regular takoyaki, and 'Russian Roulette Takoyaki." This one had the same outwardly identical 8 dough balls but here each of them has something different inside. You never know what it might be! Shrimp? Corn? Tuna? Chicken? A metric ton of wasabi? Yup, one of those unsuspecting looking little guys was going to be chock full of wasabi, enough to make you wish you were dead. Poor Jared got that one! I had the corn and shrimp ones.

After a bit of Ping Pong we headed out to Atsushi's parents house, as we had been invited to a traditional New Years Eve dinner. They were really nice people, but darn if some of the food wasn't really, really strange. I suppose I should probaby be used to it by now, but honestly looking at clumps of tiny fish that you would eat 10 or so at a time was enough to make my tummy go all wobbly. I still ate my fill of the slightly more conventional stuff. Chicken, Pork, Yams, Fish Cake, yummy! We then shared in some Soba, the one thing everybody in Japan eats on New Years, for luck they say. After that, we were off for a little western style celebration. No shrines for us.

While in Kyoto Jared had met a couple of college students here on break who were going to head to Osaka that day, so we met up with them at a huge bar. Like really huge. I'll admit my perception of space has been altered in the last several months, most Japanese drinking establishments fit just a dozen or so people. This one was big by American standards for sure. Darts, Pool tables, foozball, booths, tables and a dance floor. Sadly for the size, there really weren't that many people, but it was a nice place so we stuck around. And around. For some reason Jared and I didn't leave until 3:00 or so. Recall that I hadn't really slept the night before. I was whipped. Yet hungry. So we hit up a beef bowl spot, and had a long conversation with a Nova teacher and his girlfriend. We didn't part ways till after 4, at which time it was all about going back to the torture chamber at the hotel, and crashing out. Hard. Of course between the other guests and the trains, I was back awake around 9. *sigh*



Ok, now I know that UFO Catcher machines are popular here, but honestly, catch a live lobster? What would you do walking down the street with a lobster? Carry it in your purse? Weird!



The outside of the Takoyaki place.



Downtown Osaka



The dinner party.



Jared, dancing the night away.



A Ramen stall at 4ish or so in the morning.

Osaka: From Castles to Cameras

My second day in Osaka I decided to head to the most popular tourist trap in the city, Osaka Castle. The original Osaka-jo was built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the late 1500s. It was burned in an assault by the Tokugawa shogun in the early 1600s. After taking Osaka, Tokugawa rebuilt the castle on the same location. That version burned in the late 1600s when hit by lighting. What was left burned in the civil strife of the Meiji Restoration. It was rebuilt out of metal and concrete in 1928, and damaged in the 1940s. That damage was restored in the 90's. Phew, poor Osaka Castle, quite the turbulant life.

So I got up 'early' to go see this most impressive structure, only to find to my sincere disappointment that it was closed. I was certainly not the only poor tourist to head over that way that morning. A great many milled around the plaza wondering 'what to do next' At least the sheer outside walls looked pretty cool, and the park surrounding the castle was nice to wander around. The contrast between the donjon (keep) and the huge ultra-modern office buildings nearby was very striking.

So the next stop was Den-Den Town. There are three major electronics centers in Japan, places where any gadget can be tracked down, often at a discount. The biggest is Akibahara in Tokyo, then we have Den-Den Town in Osaka and lastly Osu in Nagoya. Osu was cool, but it in no way prepared me for the electronics chaos that was Den-Den Town. Multi-story buildings clustered all up and down a busy thoroughfare, with anything you could imagine available for sale. TV's, Cell Phones, Cameras, Video Game Consoles, Computers, Dvd players and discs, everything really. There were some questionable deals to be had. There were several little tables along the sidewalks peddling pirated DVDs. I could have obtained the Collectors Edition of King Kong, or even a copy of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, which doesn't even release here till March! Hah. Catering to their techie demographic there were also several large anime stores with models, dvds, costumes, anything the average anime geek could want. It was difficult to leave without a new Nikon D-50 Digital SLR tucked under my arm, but my self control held out, for now anyway.

This was the day I visited Spa World for the first time, as already chronicled. I don't know how else to emphasize the fact that Spa World is simply, hands down, the Coolest. Thing. Ever. Ok, maybe thats a bit of hyperbole, but at the least it is in the top 10!

Next up is New Years Eve. Action, Adventure and more return in a few days.





Now these are original walls from the 1620s (Tokugawa) version. Notice how large those rocks are. Ponder the fact that that wall was built in 1620. Now it may not be the rock moving feat that Stonehenge or that one big triangle thing in Egypt is, but it is still pretty impressive.



Ahh the central keep in its full splendour. Pretty cool really, much more attractive than Nagoya Castle.





Den-Den Town. Best Buy, eat your heart out.



Daytime look at Tsutentaku Tower. It looks better at night!



The sign outside Spa World detailing all their interesting ways to bathe.

The Big Move or, "I Can't Feel My Toes!"

We interrupt the Osaka coverage for breaking news from the far north of Japan.

Well I figured people would want to know how the move went, so I'll shoehorn in a post on my new home, Kanazawa.

The moving man showed up at my door around 10, and we had it all packed up and ready to go by 11. 6 hours later we show up in Kanazawa! Why is it that whenever I move my worldy belongings it snows and/or rains? It rained in Nagoya, and as we got north of the city that quickly turned to snow. It snowed pretty much the whole way north in fact. There was even one point where they made EVERYBODY get off the highway and check for either snow tires or chains. Naturally this caused traffic to back up just a little bit, say about an hours delay? Sheesh. Of course we already had snow tires, so they checked us, cleared us, and we headed back onto an almost empty expressway. *sigh*

My apartment building is actually rather secluded, kind of tucked away, so in the dark and the snow it took a little while to find. We went around the block at least 3 times! However, once we found it I was overjoyed in the spaciousness. It's huge, giant, ok well really it is just a little bit bigger than my old shoebox. But bigger is better. I have a loft so I sleep on the "second story." This frees up space downstairs for more furniture, like a little bookcase that Jessica left me. Oh happy days. The other good news is I am a shortish walk to school. In the snow it has been running about 20 minutes, but in summer with my bike I bet I can make it in under 10 easy.

Speaking of the school, it is right in the central downtown area. It is a nice place, with two other teachers, Paul and Asuka. In worse news the heat hasn't been working. My rooms been OK warmth wise because of a space heater. But the lobby and office area are just as cold as the outside. We could see our breath. It was baaad. And of course our manager was at a meeting, so there was nobody to call and try and fix the problem. Argh.

As far as the weather goes, it pretty much hasn't stopped snowing since I got here. In fact here it has set a few records. Kanazawa city itself hasn't had it too bad, only say a foot of snow. But from a bit north of us all the way to Hokkaido is a total mess.

Reuters

Japan Times

Ok here are some photos!



The moving "truck"



The new shoebox, from the kitchen area to the main room.



peering down on the main room from my loft.



Near my place. Nice little street scene.





Downtown, the school is right down the street from here.

All The Fishes in the Deep Blue Sea

One of the star attractions in Osaka is the Aquarium down in the redevelped port area. It sounded a lot like Nagoya's port area, just with a Universal Studios added in. It was, to a certain extent. The Osaka Aquarium building is actually much smaller than Nagoya's, so I was kind of worried going in. I needn't have bothered with the worry at all.

Like the Nagoya Aquarium, there was a geographical theme. The exhibits followed the "Ring of Fire" around the Pacific, from Japan to the Aleutian Islands to California to Panama to Chile to New Zealand. The coolest thing in this part was the Sea Otters. Now, we have all seen pictures of Sea Otters floating on their backs and looking super cute. Its kind of what they do. Look cute, eat a few clams. But like so many things in life, the photos don't quite tell the whole story. For instance, Sea Otters are huge. Well, not Whale huge, but much larger than your garden variety otter, the ones I saw were certainly over 4 feet long, and I heare they can reach up to 5 feet. They were certainly cute, but the cuteness had a bit of an edge to it. "I'm cute, but I'm death on abalone!" I was suitably impressed.

As I circled around the perimeter, I discovered a very interesting design choice. Depth. Each tank was pretty deep, and as you walked around you would descend, so you could see the Monteray Sea Lions lounging on the rocks, then downstairs could see them swimming freely. The Dolphin tank was also like that, surface and underwater. Now that in and of itself isn't the biggest breakthrough, I mean The Denver Zoo has that too with Polar Bears and Sea Lions. But... But, turn the corner and you see it is a breakthrough of fantastic proportions.

The Osaka Aquarium has the largest tank in the world. Now note that that is larget enclosed tank, I believe that some of the pools at places like Sea World may be larger. But that does not diminish the scale of this accomplishment. 4 stories tall, the Pacific Ocean in one giant fish tank. Inside was the star attraction, a Whale Shark. He was an impressive sight, swimming lazily around just looking big. But what really captured my attention was the Manta Ray. I have seen rays of other sorts, some even as much as a couple of feet across. I've always thought they looked really cool, but I had forgotten that Rays can get really, really big. I honestly don't know the dimensions of the Osaka Manta Ray, but I'd say his wings were easy 8-10 feet. They can get much bigger in the wild, though, and its not like I could just get out a tape measure!

With all the sharks and rays and other strange creatures, it was no surprise to hear some little kid bawling his eyes out. After all, some of these creatures were pretty freaky looking, I can easily see them giving a nightmare or two to some impressionable youngster. But the real nightmare creatures were downstairs. The large deep sea crabs, the kind that look like evil aliens coming out of the darkest night to eat you, and your family. They looked mean, and pretty cool actually! Next to the crabs were jellyfish, now those are my nightmare species. Just so passively active. They seem like harmless sacks of jelly yet are voracious predators. Ugh.

Well, there you go, a tour through Osaka Aquarium, certainly a thumbs up attraction. Osaka Castle is actually the most visited sightseeing site in Osaka, but I'd say the fishes are more worthwhile. Though the castle is pretty cool too.



Its a whale. no its a shark. Ok lets call it Whaleshark.



I love watching schools of fish. Talk about following the herd.





If you have to get a job washing windows, this would be a pretty darn cool place to do it.





Here's looking at you, kid.



Deep Sea Crabs.



The Manta Ray.



Slow motion death.



Osaka at night, that is Shin-Sakai, and it was right near the hotel, a bit past Spa World.

Ok, hope you've enjoyed Osaka Vacation 1 in a series. As an aside I have made it safey to Kanazawa and am already planning my shopping trip. Need: Boots, Winter Jammies, and a portable heater!

Farewell Nagoya

Tomorrow morning I leave for Kanazawa. I'll admit that I'm still rather in shock about the whole thing. My adventures in Osaka really drove home all the reasons that I like Nagoya. It is a nice city, big without being too big, exciting without being too exciting. Fun, livable, lively, interesting, underlooked, underappreciated, all of those describe Nagoya. It may not be as famous as Tokyo, or Kyoto, or even Takayama, but Nagoya does have some charms of its own. It has been my home for these past four months, and I have come to realise that I will indeed miss it. My little shoebox really has become Home. Who would have thought that?

The night before I left for Osaka, I convinced Johanna to head out to Sakae to see the city from the top of the TV Tower at night. Neither of us had been to the top at night, and it seemed like a good way to say goodbye, both to a good friend, and the city. The view was amazing, even if the top observation deck was rather chilly! We chatted, primarily about how amazing and rather surreal life is right now. How the last 4-6 months have passed in a blinking blur, and yet the time we spent in training in early September seems so long ago. It is so strange, June was yesterday, yet September was 10 years ago. I suppose life is like that sometimes, but my situation seems to have enhanced the effect.

Despite having spent two days in close company, Jared and I headed to Sakae one final time for a quick bite to eat to break up the time I've spent packing like a madman. We hit up an Australian bar, as I felt like a burger, not Japanese food. The burger was servicable, but the beef was... strange. All it really did was make me miss Dad's burgers. Now that was a wonderful burger. *sigh* Well at least the company was good, if a bit exhausted. Then we said goodbye, and thats it. Life continues on, and I head over the horizon, to see what lies on the western shore.

Exits Stage Left.




A nice view of the TV Tower and Oasis 21. I've taken a lot of pictures of the two, in all different weather, but they really are photogenic landmarks! Especially at night. And really, the new paint job on the TV tower looks nice.





I like this shot. Really it looks kind of like some science fiction film, maybe Blade Runner.



I sent a postcard or two with a similar (better) shot to this. But I had to take a crack at it and add my own spin to the scene. I like it, that whole area is nice, but there has never been much cause to go North of the Tower like this.



Jingu Nishi subway station. My gateway to greater Nagoya. Goodbye Meijo Line, and goodbye Nagoya.

Hello 2006

Well there we go. The end to a wild and interesting year. I cannot wait to see what new things and adventures 2006 has in store for me. Good luck to you all, and Happy New Year!