JAPAN: Day 3 – Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto (Wednesday, 21 January 2015)
So it was our third day in Japan as we woke up in Osaka. We spent the morning just chillin’ out in the hotel room, and continued watching the TV porn channel we paid last night. I remember watching this one movie (yes, there was movie, not just a short sex video clip) about a man who caught his wife cheating on him with another man in their house. He then asked his wife to leave the house. As the wife ran away from the house, she met her daughter on the way. The daughter looked so confused to see her mother leaving with tears in her eyes. So the daughter went back home to find her father, still angry with what he just found out.
Days later, the father turned to his daughter and forced her to have sex with him! Eew, that’s sick already. But what’s even sicker, was that after several times having sex with the father, the young girl seemed to get addicted to sex. One day, she went to her grandfather’s house, and seduced him! And of course, since it’s a porn movie, the grandfather gave in to his granddaughter, and ‘did’ her. Gross.
The movie then changed to the perspective of the wife who left home earlier in the movie. She now lives with his other man, who turned out to be a father of a teenage boy. In the movie, it showed that the relationship between this woman and her other man was not getting better, as she kept rejecting the man to have sex in the night. Later in the movie, we saw the teenage boy having a fantasy about his ‘mother-to-be’. Well, you can guess what, the woman finally did ‘it’ with her other man’s son.
We didn’t watch this movie til the end cause we had to check out from the hotel and go somewhere we can print some documents, before leaving for Nara. Jutet was contacted by his colleague, and he had to sign some papers that day, so it was kind of urgent. We’ve been told by Osaka Teikoku Hotel staff to visit Kansai Tourist Information Center, which is located at 3F of Tommy Hilfiger Store in Shinsaibashi area, for the document-printing purpose. So we did.
It turned out to be one of the best places we visited in Osaka, believe me. The staff there were all very friendly and welcoming. They asked us about our trip, and where we planned to go. They gave us two cups of green tea, and also two hand towels, for free! Even better, the service for using the computer, printing the document, and scanning it, was free as well! In this place, you can ask about things related to Kansai area (Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, Mie, Wakayama, Hyōgo, and Shiga) and also buy some Japanese souvenirs. We felt very appreciated and treated very well as we left the place to continue our journey. I forgot to take a photo of the place but here’s one picture I found in the internet, in case you’re interested to visit them, too:
Oh well. So I guess it’s finally the time for us to leave Osaka! Someday we’ll be back, for more delicious cuisine and for these lovely people!!! 🙂
We went to Osaka-Namba station to take Kintetsu Nara Line Rapid Express, directly to Nara Station. It was just a little bit more than half an hour, et voilà, we arrived in the peaceful little town of Nara…
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| Nara Station entrance and surroundings. |
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| Nara Street Map |
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| Calm and almost-empty roads in Nara. |
At first we were just strolling around the town by feet… visiting the local shopping street in Naranachi area… spoiling our eyes with the view of local houses…
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| Higashimuki Shopping Street, Naranachi. |
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| Hex Hive, a shop that sells winter jackets and vegetables. |
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| Some cute local snack stall. |
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| One of the shops with good deals 🙂 |
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| Found a small radio station, broadcasting a live program. |
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| Gango-ji Temple |
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| Along the small and quiet streets of Nara… |
For me personally, the town was just so beautiful that now I feel like putting up all the photos here in this blog post. I guess I should leave some of them in my Facebook album. You can see many more photos, the album’s open for public.
We finally rented two bikes after visiting a small rental shop somewhere in the town. Unfortunately I forgot to take the picture of the shop, but believe me, rental bikes are everywhere in Nara. It’s not something difficult to find. You can rent a bike for about 200 JPY per hour, or 500 JPY per 3 hours. It was so cool to bike around the town, as the cool breeze sweeping my cheeks… First stop! Kohfuku-ji Temple:
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| The Five-Storied Pagoda, Kohfuku-ji Temple area. |
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| Tōkon-dō (East Golden Hall), Kohfuku-ji Temple area. |
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| Nan’en-dō (South Octagonal Hall), Kohfuku-ji Temple area. |
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| Feeding the deer in Kohfuku-ji Temple area. |
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| Me with the bikes (haha), in front of Kohfuku-ji Temple area entrance. |
I have to admit that I like to look in Wikipedia for history of ANYTHING. So, according to the English version of Wikipedia, Kohfuku-ji Temple is a Buddhist temple that was once one of the powerful Seven Great Temples. The temple is the national headquarters of the Hossō school and is one of the eight Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Continuing the great journey, we then headed to the biggest temple area in Nara: Todai-ji Temple. Just like in Kohfuku-ji, you can also see a lot of deer in Todai-ji Temple area. I couldn’t resist taking pictures and pictures of them as they were just super adorable and sweet.
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| The walk to Todai-ji Temple = this deer’s catwalk. |
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| The parking area guard of Todai-ji Temple. |
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| The naughty one. |
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| The half-blinded deer. |
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| The most elegant of all. |
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| The Great Buddha Hall (Daibutsuden), which houses the world’s largest wooden statue of the Buddha Vairocana, known in Japanese simply as Daibutsu. |
Alright, excuse me for all those deer pictures. They were just way too good-looking!
There was actually an admission fee for Todai-ji Temple (800 JPY), but because we didn’t plan to go inside the museum and the hall, we were just hanging out there for free, just like in Kohfuku-ji 🙂
Before leaving this lovely little town, we bought ourselves the traditional style of Nara sushi from a seller next to Nara Station:
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| Nara sushi, wrapped in a persimmon leaf. Remember NOT to eat the leaf, though. |
We bought the sushi after returning the bikes to its shop, and walked to Nara Station. Right after we finished the delicious sushi, we took Kintetsu Limited Express, going to Kyoto Station. From Kyoto Station, we had to take Kyoto City Subway Karasuma Line to reach Shijo Station, where our hotel was closely located.
Just like our second night in Japan, we had to ask a random pedestrian regarding the address and the direction to the hotel from the station. We were, again, lucky. A kind guy walked us to the hotel which turned out to be in a very strategic location. It was on the side of the big road, and close to some shopping areas as well. For me, this hotel is the best one during our trip to Japan, not to mention that we also got a good deal from Agoda for the rate! 🙂
There is not much that I can tell about our first night in Kyoto, as we arrived quite late and we were pretty tired after the day trip in Nara. We just went out to grab some dinner from Sukiya, a small restaurant that provides good food with reasonable price, around 500 JPY per dish. It’s more or less like Tempura Tendon Tenya, the one I reviewed in my previous post.
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| What I like about Sukiya, is that they also have desserts! |
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| Jutet, yawning in front of Sukiya. |
One full day in Kyoto awaits the next day! The two sleepyheads then headed to bed, ready for another awesome day in Japan…
Hasta pronto, amigos.
XOXO
Advencheer! 
Baca ini jadi pengen ke Jepang. Mungkin Nara bisa jadi tempat favorite, so calm….
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Kok baru baca comment ini ya? 0_o
Yup, Nara was such a beautiful quiet little town. Peaceful, clean, and calming.
Yuzawa jugaaa… cuma di sana pas winter fully covered by snow aja bedanya :p
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