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I had a lot of options for what to do with my weekend. In fact, I'd decided to do the easiest touristy things like Osaka castle when I discovered the place I really wanted to go was quite complicated, but I woke up on Saturday morning and knew I would regret not going where I wanted to go, so I plotted out my four train, one bus trip and set out for the Chikatsu Asuka Museum in Osaka prefecture. The train ride there actually went really smoothly though going back I had to wait a half hour for the timing to be right. I discovered I'd have to wait 40min for the bus when I got there so I got a taxi which wasn't the best idea for my wallet, but ensured that the trip went quite smoothly. The museum was made by one of Japan's famous architects, Tadao Ando, to look like a gleaming white keyhole shaped Kofun with a tower on the top of it. What I most appreciated about this design is it made the museum inside very easy to explore since it was all either the long part of the key for the round part. I had brought a yogurt and onigiri with me, but I stopped first in the museums cafe and ended up having anko beans and whipped cream on toast (toast in Japan always being white bread which is about an inch thick if not more). This rounded out my meal nicely. I then paid my student entrance fee and headed into the museum. A lot of their displays were replicas and there was almost nothing in English, but they had a lot of haniwa I'd never seen before, and a good display on iron and burial coffins. I loved their little diorama in the centre of the museum mostly because it was adorable with its tiny little figures building kofun and going about their daily Kofun period business. I then watched a film on how a kofun was constructed (which had very little dialogue and most of it was of the, "1600 years ago, the people built mounded tombs!" variety). I then stopped in the museum's tiny shop to browse through the local site reports (museums always sell their local prefecture's site reports oddly enough). I was disappointed not to find their special edition book on women in the Kofun period (which I had photocopied the day before), but I found an interesting site report so I'm happy.
My next stop was the kofun (graves) themselves. See, the reason why the museum is in such an inaccessible place is that it's on a mountain covered in kofun. I only hiked about half of the paths available and still saw more than 25 of them. Of course, the mountain was also covered in jungle, was humid and hot and was buzzing with mosquitoes. I had covered myself in bug spray before I left in anticipation of this, but I'd forgotten my neck so they buzzed around my head a lot. It might have worked at least since I had two mosquito bites show up late the next day which may have been from my wandering on Sunday. Not sure since the allegra I'm on means that bites appear quite long after they happen. Anyway, it was a rather ardorous hike and I nearly killed myself because the paths which weren't steep steps up rain washed hills were paved roads covered in green moss and heading down. I slipped and slid about ten feet going down one and nearly smashed my camera. At the top of one of the hills was a reconstruction of a huge kofun which you could go inside. I happily did, pretending that I didn't see any 2-3inch big spider-grasshopper hybrids covering the walls... I then followed another path down, went inside another tomb, and tried not to die on a steep path which was crawling with small bugs who scattered whenever you took a step (kind of Studio Ghibli esque). Once to the bottom, I was a wreck with sweat and what not so I headed back to the museum, saw some more tombs, almost lost sauronchan when he fell out of my pocket and I didn't notice until several tombs later, then went in the museum. I refreshed myself, then took the most leisurely path I could to get to the bus stop (which stopped at the "necropolis" - a very accurate name). The bus took about a half hour to get back to the train station and I laboriously (and without the benefit of hyperdia's timing) went back on the four trains in reverse order. I made it back to Nara before 5pm and bought some food to have a meal in my hotel room while watching Up.
The next day, I planned a more leisurely trip to Kyoto. There was one temple I had missed my first time on Kyoto called the Sanjuesangen-do which is famous for it's thousand statues of Kannon bodhisattva along with attendants. I had studied the hall in my Buddhist art history class so I was curious to see it. The statues really were beautifully done, especially the heavenly generals and attendants in front. You couldn't take pics though which was a shame. I then wandered the grounds, looking at the hall (which is huge) and the small ornamental gardens. From there, I walked to the subway and caught a train to Gion (this is the former geisha/nightlife area fyi). There is a narrow alley (Pontcho) which hosts restaurants on both sides right after you cross over the river with restaurants facing the river always having balconies where you can sit outside, practically by the shore of the river. These are very expensive of course and after much debate with myself over how much I was willing to spend, I ended up in a non-riverside restaurant having a nice tofu set lunch. This involved tofu boiled in milk then dipped in soy sauce, plus rice with tiny little fish as furikake (they were so small, it just tasted salty to be honest), and a huge number of sides. I ordered a chuhai which was so tasty when mixed fresh rather than from a can.
After enjoying my meal, I made my way west away from the river, crossing over a canal with pretty stone bridges on it, and into a ridiculously huge covered shopping area. I'd been on the edges of it before - long ago I took shelter from the rain there and ended up buying a woodblock print, but I'd never really explored the place, so I resolved to do so. I bought some fresh taiyaki (fish shaped pastry) with sweet white bean filling for a change, then began my wandering. I stopped to buy tiny things here and there. My wanderings brought me further west eventually into the nishiki market. This market is devoted to food, and more specifically, Japanese food so there were vats of eggplant and daikon being pickled and piles of the tiny fish I ate for lunch. It was fun to wander around though since I'd just eaten, I wasn't very hungry. I simply followed the market west for awhile, but I eventually got bored of all the food and headed back towards the covered market/mall area. I accidentally found Animate which was bad for me since they had a DBZ doujinshi I wanted as well as a Yu Yu Hakushou keychain (which turned out to be Hiei, my favourite character, yay!) and I had to wait on line for about twenty minutes to get them since the shop was so crowded. I then found another anime store on my way south and I ended up buying pretty maki-e stickers for my future electronic decoration (they're usually put on cell phones but mine look awesome on my netbook and nintendo DS). I was getting pretty tired by that point so I followed the crush towards Kyoto station through a few subway stops. Once there, I caught the train back. For dinner, I walked the eel store in Nara, but I was ultimately disappointed because while the eel tasted okay, the rice it was sitting on kinda sucked which is a shame because eel is expensive. I stopped in Lawsons on my way back. They do these displays focused around an anime where they set up a bunch of merchandise ranging from the expensive figurines to hand towels and stickers. You then pay 600 or 800 yen and pick a letter from a box behind the cashier (after you pay). You then get to keep whatever letter you get so you could get something worth 3-4 times more than you paid or worth slightly less. I really wanted this small Gintama figure so I had a go and lo and behold I picked the proper letter (much to the cashier's shock). It was Kagura and she looks awesome so yay.
I spent the evening repacking everything since in the morning, I was moving to a ryokan which was cheaper and closer to the kintetsu nara station which is where the conference I attended for the rest of the week happened.
My next stop was the kofun (graves) themselves. See, the reason why the museum is in such an inaccessible place is that it's on a mountain covered in kofun. I only hiked about half of the paths available and still saw more than 25 of them. Of course, the mountain was also covered in jungle, was humid and hot and was buzzing with mosquitoes. I had covered myself in bug spray before I left in anticipation of this, but I'd forgotten my neck so they buzzed around my head a lot. It might have worked at least since I had two mosquito bites show up late the next day which may have been from my wandering on Sunday. Not sure since the allegra I'm on means that bites appear quite long after they happen. Anyway, it was a rather ardorous hike and I nearly killed myself because the paths which weren't steep steps up rain washed hills were paved roads covered in green moss and heading down. I slipped and slid about ten feet going down one and nearly smashed my camera. At the top of one of the hills was a reconstruction of a huge kofun which you could go inside. I happily did, pretending that I didn't see any 2-3inch big spider-grasshopper hybrids covering the walls... I then followed another path down, went inside another tomb, and tried not to die on a steep path which was crawling with small bugs who scattered whenever you took a step (kind of Studio Ghibli esque). Once to the bottom, I was a wreck with sweat and what not so I headed back to the museum, saw some more tombs, almost lost sauronchan when he fell out of my pocket and I didn't notice until several tombs later, then went in the museum. I refreshed myself, then took the most leisurely path I could to get to the bus stop (which stopped at the "necropolis" - a very accurate name). The bus took about a half hour to get back to the train station and I laboriously (and without the benefit of hyperdia's timing) went back on the four trains in reverse order. I made it back to Nara before 5pm and bought some food to have a meal in my hotel room while watching Up.
The next day, I planned a more leisurely trip to Kyoto. There was one temple I had missed my first time on Kyoto called the Sanjuesangen-do which is famous for it's thousand statues of Kannon bodhisattva along with attendants. I had studied the hall in my Buddhist art history class so I was curious to see it. The statues really were beautifully done, especially the heavenly generals and attendants in front. You couldn't take pics though which was a shame. I then wandered the grounds, looking at the hall (which is huge) and the small ornamental gardens. From there, I walked to the subway and caught a train to Gion (this is the former geisha/nightlife area fyi). There is a narrow alley (Pontcho) which hosts restaurants on both sides right after you cross over the river with restaurants facing the river always having balconies where you can sit outside, practically by the shore of the river. These are very expensive of course and after much debate with myself over how much I was willing to spend, I ended up in a non-riverside restaurant having a nice tofu set lunch. This involved tofu boiled in milk then dipped in soy sauce, plus rice with tiny little fish as furikake (they were so small, it just tasted salty to be honest), and a huge number of sides. I ordered a chuhai which was so tasty when mixed fresh rather than from a can.
After enjoying my meal, I made my way west away from the river, crossing over a canal with pretty stone bridges on it, and into a ridiculously huge covered shopping area. I'd been on the edges of it before - long ago I took shelter from the rain there and ended up buying a woodblock print, but I'd never really explored the place, so I resolved to do so. I bought some fresh taiyaki (fish shaped pastry) with sweet white bean filling for a change, then began my wandering. I stopped to buy tiny things here and there. My wanderings brought me further west eventually into the nishiki market. This market is devoted to food, and more specifically, Japanese food so there were vats of eggplant and daikon being pickled and piles of the tiny fish I ate for lunch. It was fun to wander around though since I'd just eaten, I wasn't very hungry. I simply followed the market west for awhile, but I eventually got bored of all the food and headed back towards the covered market/mall area. I accidentally found Animate which was bad for me since they had a DBZ doujinshi I wanted as well as a Yu Yu Hakushou keychain (which turned out to be Hiei, my favourite character, yay!) and I had to wait on line for about twenty minutes to get them since the shop was so crowded. I then found another anime store on my way south and I ended up buying pretty maki-e stickers for my future electronic decoration (they're usually put on cell phones but mine look awesome on my netbook and nintendo DS). I was getting pretty tired by that point so I followed the crush towards Kyoto station through a few subway stops. Once there, I caught the train back. For dinner, I walked the eel store in Nara, but I was ultimately disappointed because while the eel tasted okay, the rice it was sitting on kinda sucked which is a shame because eel is expensive. I stopped in Lawsons on my way back. They do these displays focused around an anime where they set up a bunch of merchandise ranging from the expensive figurines to hand towels and stickers. You then pay 600 or 800 yen and pick a letter from a box behind the cashier (after you pay). You then get to keep whatever letter you get so you could get something worth 3-4 times more than you paid or worth slightly less. I really wanted this small Gintama figure so I had a go and lo and behold I picked the proper letter (much to the cashier's shock). It was Kagura and she looks awesome so yay.
I spent the evening repacking everything since in the morning, I was moving to a ryokan which was cheaper and closer to the kintetsu nara station which is where the conference I attended for the rest of the week happened.
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