Our second day in Osaka was pretty laid back compared to the first. It began with a trip to Osaka castle. This turned out to be fairly boring. It looks really awesome from the outside but then you go in. The thing about a lot of these castles in Japan is that they have all burned down like 50 times so you are never looking at the original. Osaka castle apparently really likes to get torched. It once even burned down when they were attempting to restore it. The current iteration looked like it was build in 1990 or something. The inside was completely modern and it was really more of a museum rather than a representation of what the castle use to be.
After our exciting tour of mid 90's architecture we went to the Osaka aquarium. Having never really heard much about it I did not know what to expect. We were lucky enough to go at feeding time so all the animals were active and visible. It was one of the best aquariums I have been to. I will let the pictures do the talking on this one.
The next day we headed out to Nara. When we arrived our hotel room was not ready so we rented some bikes and hit the town. Nara is a smaller town that was one of the formal capitals. They are known for their old temples and for the deer that freely roam the city. The first place we stopped was Kofukuji Temple. The thing about the temples in Nara that becomes immediately evident is that they are much older than those in Kyoto. They seemed to have had their last burnings some 400 years ago rather than 1980. Kyoto suddenly seemed less interesting.
We were lucky enough to be in Nara for the 1300 anniversary of it being named the capital of Japan. Because of this some of the temples that are not usually open to the public were now open for a limited time. We got to go inside some places people who lived in Nara all their life probably never got to see. Japan likes to have all this sweet stuff that they let people know is there but will not let them see. They then will randomly for no reason open it up or close it off.
After Kofukuji Temple we went to Todaiji Temple which according to the guide book is the biggest wooden structure in the world. Peter and I found this debatable seeing as the Tacoma dome appears to be much larger. As we arrived the building was quite massive and housed the biggest Buddha I have ever seen. It was quite impressive. The Buddha was nice and all but is this building capable of holding events like WWE Monday Night Raw and Monster Jam? Tacoma Dome 1, Todaiji Temple 0.
Throughout our time in Nara we were surrounded by deer. They roam the parks and walkways. As we left Todaiji Temple I decided to buy some deer biscuits that are sold all around the temples. This was a horrible mistake. As soon as the vendor handed over the biscuits the deers surrounded me. Terrified I started feeding them but they got aggressive. Then they started to bite. Hard. One kept biting my butt while one broke skin on my inner thy. Having grown quite fond of my penis I threw the stack of biscuits at the biggest deer I could find and ran off. Golddiggers...
After a bit more sightseeing we headed home and got some dinner at a local Indian restaurant. We both got the combo plate and received the biggest piece of naan known to man. It was bigger than an elephant ear. It was delicious. Just give me a big piece of naan and a bucket of sauce and im good.
We are off to the mountains of Nagano tomorrow. The trip should take all day. I am unsure if they will have internet so stay tuned. I will leave you with these words of wisdom:
