Started off in Nara, where I might have to go back to. I didn't go to half of the sights...still apparently a whole section of buildings that are some of the oldest wooden structures in the world. The temple grounds of Nara are an immense park that were originally intended to be the new seat (8th Century) of Buddhism. And they built the most extraordinary temples and this immense Bronze Buddha that is so beautiful. I don't think any of the photos or videos will capture how amazing it is. Then temple after temple stretching up and over these hills.
I got Lisa what I think is a very beautiful gift, which I'll mail tomorrow. In the temple hall of the Buddha there were two monks selling silk lined blank books, they inscribed the first page with hand done calligraphy and stamped it with two wax seals. They were really lovely little men, one with a long white beard. So I waited in line and got one. I'm afraid she'll have to have it translated... but I think it will basically be a good luck wish, since everything else at the stand was some kind of charm.
At that point I lost track of the cast and just wandered at my own pace through these grounds... stopped in a little thatched roof tea house and had Matcha tea under the ginko and pine trees, doused myself in water from an enormous bronze fountain shaped like a lotus leaf. All the fall colors were out as well so it was just beautiful. And!... the deer is their sacred animal, so there are hundreds of tame deer wandering around mooching food like enormous squirrels.
Then, wandered into the little town and bought sweet buns of freshly cooked black bean and persimmon paste wrapped in rice, steamed and powdered in sesame powder (apparently the speciality of the town). I'm sitting now and eating the rest of them, now chilled from the walk home.
The train ride out to Nara from Osaka was about 35 minutes, but on the way back I got on the local train by mistake, but which ended up being very cool since all the schoolkids were using it to get home and it was filled with all these crazy uniformed kids (five year old boys in full military uniforms with gold epaulets and tasselled hats!). When we got back into town I hopped off in the middle of the city in the hopes of stumbling upon something cool, and basically from the moment I walked off the train I just powered through all these extraordinary neighbourhoods. First wandered into the entertainment district and ate noodles and roast pork at one of those streetside stands with a huge orange dragon leaning over my head while hundreds of people wandered by (actually there were always hundreds of people walking by...Osaka seems to live out on the street). Then I followed Fodor's advice and walked into the 'fashion' district...which is basically where those crazy Japanese outfits are sold to a willing public. Endless alleys of tiny stores selling truly crazy clothes... and tiny little trendy teenage girls wandering by with 'glow in the dark' hair, combat jackets and pink tutus with their legs shaking from the 4 inch stilettos on their knee length patent leather boots...and I won't even begin on the insane outfits on their boyfriends...
You know, I should always remember just to walk and walk in any new city. The only way I can really understand a place is on my feet. Perhaps that's why I'm getting Osaka more than Tokyo, since it is possible to walk here...
anyway, I decided to try and make it home on the street (about a three hour walk). Next up was their version of 5th Avenue...with luxury stores all over the place. I'm not big on brand names, but the Dior store is incredible - a five story building sheathed in thin slabs of translucent white travertine marble and lit from within. Luckily at about that point I ran into the first of a series of people giving away free energy drinks... must have been some kind of citywide push for the product since by the time I got back to the hotel I'd had about five of them... it must have been about 6:30 by then since suddenly the streets filled up with people as everyone left their office. I'd been running out of steam but the wave of folk on the sidewalk sort of picked me up again and I headed into what turned out to be business district and walked for ages up a wide boulevard lined with hundreds and hundreds of Ginko trees. They were just starting to lose their leaves: so all these fan like yellow Ginko leaves, (they look more like petals than leaves) were slowly raining down into the evening.
Then, at one point the rush just got a bit much and I turned off onto a side street filled with Neon lights and found myself in a crazy high end red light district. All these wildly coiffed prostitutes with slinky dresses wrapped in fur coats grabbing packets of cigarettes at vending machines before heading into these marble fronted bars: obviously getting ready for a long night of work. They looked like characters from a Wong Kar Wai movie. There were even a few women dressed as Geishas shuffling along the sidewalk... though I'm not sure if they really were Geishas... I don't know if just dressing like a Geisha means you get to be one... I think these girls might have been fulfilling the 'Geisha Fantasy' post at whatever bar they worked at. And ( the first time that I've seen this type in Japan) a whole bunch of really hard eyed mean looking guys either standing watch on street corners and climbing out of cars with tinted windows....they looked like the stereotype of Japanese Yakuza gangsters. Happily I obviously wasn't the wanted kind of customer since I was basically invisible and I calmly wandered out the other side of the district....
then, to end the evening... when I thought I was almost home, and my feet were wishing I was, I turned a corner and found myself beside an immense block long and block wide building with an equally immense ferris wheel perched right on top... turned out to be a 11 story shopping mall 'entertainment complex', plus another seven floors of ferris wheel... and it was totally mobbed. I headed in under the life size blue whale hanging in the lobby. I wanted to check out the ferris wheel but never made it on. I burnt out on my way up - the last two floors turned out to be a crazy windowless Goth casino/gaming arcade filled with insane machines (would you like to sit and stick money into a machine that is turning in circles and has a full size version of the monster from Alien hanging over you?) by the time I stumbled onto the roof to watch the enormous ferris wheel go round I was kind too dizzy to think of getting onto it... (perhaps tomorrow night..)
Anyway... for the first time I feel like I've actually seen and tasted and been in Japan... and it is really everything I imagined it would be... just beautiful and strange and bladerunner like.... And the weather didn't hurt either. Today in the temple grounds it was T-shirt weather and in the evening I had my coat on, but my sweater stayed in my bag. Just amazing.
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