To kill the time until normal humans awake I was catching up on my blog, kept drinking nice green tea and also decided to give our immensely small bathtub a try.
Hot baths are obviously part of the culture in Japan and every hotel room as a bath, it might be tiny but it will work. This one was maybe 1.4m long and probably a 1m deep. Interestingly the mark of the water is only half way up the bath tub but when I got in the water level rose up to the brim, which gives you an idea of how small it is and how folded up I was. The water is really hot. I would guess something like 40 - 42 degrees, so it is hotter than your body temperature which makes you sweat. But the sweat can only come out at parts of your skin that are above the water. It is very relaxing and really nice while you are in the bath but the best part is when you are getting out. The you will start feeling like you ran 10k and just want to lie on the bed and stare at the wall.
It's really like doing sports but not actually having to do any sports. Great!!!
Today's excursion should bring us to Nara the old Capitol of Japan (During the Nara period - 710 - 784). It is only a short train ride away and we could use our Kansai thru pass to get there. The train took us up a hill in the east of Osaka where we had a great view over the entire city and then through a long tunnel. On the other side would be Nara where we arrived underground right in the city centre.
After a small stroll around a park and visiting a shrine we made our way to the major attraction and started to feel a bit hungry. We saw a little place at with a line of people in front of it and assumed it had to be a good place. So we queued as well. It moved a bit slower than we expected but by this time we had already given the lady our order so we stayed. After what felt like an hour but probably was only 30 min we set down at a Japanese table and got our food. It was rice boiled in a small metal pot with fish and vegetables. It was called Kamameshi and the best part of this dish was according to the English description we got with it, the Okoge (the slightly burnt rice at the bottom of the pot.). In the end the time spent waiting worth worth it.
We then walked up to the park and visited a shrine and some really impressive buildings. One of them houses an extremely large sitting Buddha (one of the biggest in the world and the biggest in Japan). This building apparently is the largest wooden building in the world.
All over this park were deer, I mean there were hundreds of them just walking around the place getting fed by the tourists with special deer crackers you could but at the stands. They were not shy at all. I was not a big fan of the whole thing but the Japanese kids enjoyed it a lot.
We really walked a lot and after the big Todai-ji Buddha we walked up the hill to visit another temple and big bell.
Before we got back on the train we got some sushi that was wrapped in a persimmon leave which is a local speciality. These were to go and then we found this little pub where we had some beers and snacks listening to jazz and watching the people walk by.
We had to get going soon if we still wanted to tick off the rest of our plans for the day. So we went off to the train station and back to Osaka. What would be a visit of Osaka if we hadn't seen the famous Osaka Castle? The temporary residence of Lord Blackthorne from Shogun.
The castle is surrounded by a very large park and we had to pass three or four incredibly strong walls (through gates of course) and moats (over bridges). I really thing this castle would have been untakable back in the days. It took some time (and some walking) until we got our first good glimpse at the brighly lit castle sitting high above the rest of the fortress. It was really an awe inspiring site to look at.
We left the castle grounds on the other site and walked on to the next subway station to take the train back to Namba (the central station) to tick of yet another box. We had to get some Okonomiyaki (I tried this in Hiroshima with my friends back in 2008 and have really enjoyed it and needed another fix). Yuni's Korean travel guide mentioned a famous place near the shopping area we visited yesterday.
When we arrived it seemed to be quite a posh place but the food was good. I had the Hiroshimayaki which came close to the one I had last time and Yuni had a seafood version. When the bill came some confusion was created with the different orders and starters and tax. The bills didn't make sense to us at the time so we tried to ask the staff how all of this came together but this only confused the situation even more. In the end we didn't have to pay for the starters (which we assumed were free anyway as we didn't order them). No one got hurt and it is all good in the end - and we saved 500 Yen.
Back at the hotel we now were really wrecked and it didn't take long (about half a cup of tea) until I fell asleep.
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