Japan – days 6 and 7
After our day in Hiroshima we got up bright and early and headed to Osaka. On the agenda for Osaka: check out the aquarium (one of the few aquariums in the world to house a whale shark) and take a train to town outside the city called Nara which has, like, 7 World Heritage Sites or so.
Day 7 I only have a couple of pictures from. After all that constant going we slept in, then got on the shinkansen and headed back for Steve’s where we rested for the afternoon before meeting him after work to attend another baseball game (his home team, Chiba Marines playing this time) and after that singing karaoke. Yes, we actually sang karaoke. It’s not so bad Japanese style though, they put you and your friends in a private room with the karaoke machine, so you only have to make an idiot out of yourself in front of your friends. Those of you who know how bad of a singer I am will know that it was still not easy for me; or for Dave either but we actually did it. We enjoyed it, too, since they had to kick us out at 1:30 am when the place closed!!
Giant ferris wheel in Osaka. They claim it’s the larget in the world but I don’t think it is bigger than the London Eye….this one was probably the biggest when it was built, though.
This is him, the star of the Osaka aquarium. I hope to see one of these guys while scuba diving one day but we couldn’t pass up the chance to see one, even if he was in an aquarium. The aquarium was great, but the thousands of red and yellow hatted school kids on field trips was a little crazy. They say Japan has the lowest birth rate of any country but you wouldn’t have guessed it that day at the aquarium!
This is the most famous of Nara’s World Heritage sites. It is a huge wooden building (claims to be the largest wooden structure in the world) housing a huge Buddha statue. The building was originally built in something like 500 AD but has burned down twice and been rebuilt, most recently in the 1700’s if I remember correctly.
This is the Buddha housed in the giant wooden building. The statue was cast all as one piece and was remade around the last time the building was re-built in the 1700’s.
The gate leading into the building area. See those crazy deer? They live all over the park and harass people for food. I’m surprised they live very long, I saw one eating a plastic bag.
Huge wooden statue also in the building with the big Buddha.
The whole town of Nara is just cool. This is still inside Nara Park as it’s getting close to sunset but there is a cool traditional Japanese neighborhood near the park we walked through on our way back to the hotel. There were small traditional homes with beautiful gardens and we saw a geisha and her maiko (understudy) walking home probably after performing somewhere. They looked tired.
Dave sings karaoke!!!
Steve is actually a very good singer, and does karaoke a lot so it was a little tough for Dave and I sing with him. Since we are terrible and had never done karaoke before.
Tags: japan, Travel
Sissy
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