The trains in Japan and reasonably easy to understand and
relatively cheap so we took a day trip to nearby Nara. It bucketed down all day
and we were soaked to the core by the time we got home. It was worth it though
to visit Kohfukuji Temple Complex and Todai-ji Temple to see some great shrines, temples and to feed the deer. They can
be quite forceful and are probably the only way you’ll get mugged in Japan!
We also did a day trip to Kyoto, to see another temple,
covered in real gold! The gardens were nice too, very tranquil and at another
temple we saw one of the best Zen gardens around (apparently).
All in all, Japan has been a great place to visit. The
convenience stores have served as our kitchens with great sushi and the like
for not very much money at all. We’ve eaten out several times as well and
again, it’s not cost much. I love the vending machines with hot cans of coffee
(or cold) and even vending machines for beer! We’ve had a few people try out
their English on us and in each case their English was very good – they just
lack confidence! One was an old guy on the train to Nara who said “English is
universal, Japanese, only in Japan.”
It feels very safe here and the streets are very clean.
People seem to conform but also not to conform – there are loads of people,
particularly the young, who dress with distinctively individualistic style! It
makes it much more interesting walking down the street or sitting on the train.
They’re big into baseball and seem to be even bigger into dressing animals up –
the number of poor animals we’ve seen wearing dresses etc. We even saw two dogs
the other day in matching boys and girls outfits (the girl had a fluffy
miniskirt on and the fur on her ears had been fluffed up and dyed orange!).
Well that’s a quick catch up before flying off to Dubai to
visit Helen and then onto Mumbai, then hopefully to Goa for a ‘holiday’. We
won’t have access to internet so readily so it could be a while before there
are any more updates, we’ll see…
