Saturday 12 April 2008

Nara and Deer Park



Had breakfast at the station again, I spoke to an English guy who was off to BIC Camera (I love that place) to buy a Nikon D80 Camera.


Took a train to Nara today, its about 40 minutes out of Kyoto on the coast. There is a large buddhist temple there as well as a large park with lots of Deer. The park is about a 1.5km walk from the station in a straight line, past lots and lots of touristy shops selling all manner of souvenirs, food and assorted crap you find in tourist areas (think Katoomba and you get the general idea). The train wasn't a bullet train, but they shuttle along at a decent speed.


On the train trip we sat next to a lovely Japanese lady who was off to Nara for a day trip, she taught Japanese at one of the local universities to foreign students, mostly from other asian countries and also from the middle east. 


We also spoke to a retired British couple on holiday, whilst we were speaking to them a Japanese girl pulled out an Agatha Christie novel, said she loved the books, and asked if she was Agatha Christie. Would have been interesting if she was, considering Agatha Christie has been dead since 1976.


Walking to the park Sharon found a 100 Yen shop, selling all manner of stuff (think $2 shop at home). We also found a shop selling small dolls, when we asked about the price, the guy whips out a calculator and types in the price for us. I didn't think they were really that good, and he kept adding 0's to the price. The smallest one worked out to be 10,000 Yen ($100) so we left in a hurry.


We also saw two ladies pushing a cat in a specialised cat stroller, very different !


In the Deer park, you can buy feed for the Deer, and they are not backward in coming forward, Paul bought some food and got mobbed by them. Thankfully we didn't give the food to Emma, as they would have freaked her out. Once they know you have it, they don't stop until its gone, and still keep following you.


Paul and I continued into the park to see the temple, but we took the wrong path and had been walking for 20 minutes before we realised, the park is huge and keeps going on and on. We had a quick look, snapped a few shots and went back to find the girls and have some lunch.


We found a restaurant called "Piano", really trendy looking place selling Italian, Sharon and Sue had pasta, Paul & I had Pizza. Emma had a Vegemite sandwich we prepared earlier. Once again Emma was a hit with the teenage girls and girls in their twenties, they all think she is very cute. We thought she might get sick of all the attention, but she laps it up.


When we left Nara, Sharon & Sue did some shopping at Kyoto station whilst Paul & I took Emma back to the hotel for a rest. We went back to Kyoto station for Dinner, we had "Katsu" which is basically various cuts of pork lightly fried in a crumbed batter (kind of like a schnitzel) served with raw cabbage, rice and mitso soup. 


We check out tomorrow and head south to Hiroshima. We discovered the hotel has its own coin operated laundry, so we put a load through and I'm currently waiting for the dryer to complete before I pack the last suitcase. Its only a 100 volt, 20 amp dryer, so I may be blogging for a while yet.....


Pictures for today


http://www.flickr.com/photos/sg_harrison/sets/72157604498080359/

1 comment:

May said...

Hi!
I am Kyoko, who sat next to you in the train to Nara.
I had a enjoyable time talking with you.

I'm so glad to know, that you had a nice day in Nara.
Did Emma enjoy seeing deers?
I hope, that they didn't frighten her.

My husband I saw lots of temples in Nara.(And we got very tired!)
As I also took a lots of pictures, I am going to show them in my web-site in a week or so.
When the pictures are up-loaded, please have a look!(I will tell you my web-address then.)

Emma looks very cute in the picture of Disney-sea!
I am glad, that I can see her again in your web-site.

Hoping that you will have nice days in Japan,

yours

Kyoko