biba osaka!

today i took a break from cultural sightseeing. i bought a few manga at some second hand book store, mostly erika sakurazawa's stuff and attack no1 (/mila superstar) because it was only 150¥! in the afternoon i put them and some other junk in a big cardboard box and sent it off at the post office because my bag is about to explode. guess i'll have to pay for excess luggage this time. damn.

around 6pm julian and me went to osaka for one last time because osaka rocks! kyoto has nice temples and shrines and stuff but apart from that it's a rather boring and dirty city in my opinion. the only bad thing about osaka is the humidity though. fortunately we arrived in the evening so at least it wasn't that hot anymore. we walked around in namba of course and crazy shinsai-bashi-suji for a few hours, drinking chûhai and making purikura and we were lucky enough to get the last train back to kyoto in the end (although spending the night at the osaka park with the bums would've been fun, too).

trips to various places

robots.

we met a chatty obaachan (=grandma) at the sento this evening. when she found out that we understand a little japanese, she just wouldn't stop blabbering. i was too tired and didn't understand most of it but occasional nodding and a "sô desu ka" here and there seemed to satisfy her. she even gave me and ana an o-mamori (amulet)!

ana and me visited the heian shrine this morning. we took the wrong bus and lost our way a few times before we found it and it wasn't really that interesting, also the people there were rather unfriendly. at noon, we ate lunch at an italian restaurant at the main station - real european food for the first time in 6 weeks! after lunch we met with julian and went to Nagoya which takes only half an hour from Kyoto with the hikari shinkansen. we didn't visit anything special there except the spaceship aqua of the oasis 21 complex, just walked around and did some shopping and found a robot museum where we spent about an hour in the museum shop playing with all the fancy robots and toys and i bought myself a robot tshirt and a nohohon zoku.



kyoto

momooooooo.

i bought myself a 400¥ momo (peach) today to cheer me up. the peaches here in japan are huge and really expensive, they usually cost 500-700¥ at the supermarket so i got away really cheap i guess. i'm starting to feel better again. these last few days i really couldn't stand japanese food anymore and felt rather lost and sad and even more exhausted that usual but now i'm getting back on my feet again. only one week left and i should try to make the best of it. like buying overly expensive peaches or a camouflage fan. guess my kali mates are going to go green with envy!

soooo we went to the kiyomizu-dera (temple) today. i was looking forward to that because i enjoyed my trip there in 2003 very much. like the last time, i ate macha icecream, drank from the holy water of the otowa spring and bought chocolate yatsuhashi for my family. we also saw a few maiko walking around today. the temple was very crowded and there was a school class from Nagasaki which obviously had the task to talk to tourists about their home countries and stuff, we were "attacked" by at least 2-3 groups of pupils today but at least we always took funny pictures. we actually also wanted to visit the nijo castle today but as we spent far too much time at the souvenir street leading to the kiyomizu temple, the castle was already closed. we went to the main station instead and saw an amazing cheerleader performance, afterwards walked around at the gion district a bit before we headed home again.

kyoto

deer cookies.

we have really good weather these days. although it's getting quite atsui (hot) here again, the light's good for photography. today i went to Nara together with ana. we got our japan rail passes this morning and took the nara express which only needs 45min there from Kyoto.

we visited the todaiji temple with the huge 大仏 (daibutsu, great buddha). the todaiji itself was really huge and impressive as was the buddha statue. we also walked around in the gardens and the nara park, visited the kofukuji with it's five-story pagoda and saw/fed/pet/were hunted by lots and lots of deer! although it was quite scary when half a dozen deer attacked me at once when i tried to feed one with those deer cookies, i enjoyed it. i was looking forward to this day, finally one of my childhood dreams (petting deer) has come true! :)



nara

save the global warming,

we just came back from the sento. this time i used the sauna (the first time in my life btw) and one of the baths and i'm feeling soooooo relaxed and tired now. i just wanna go to sleep.

i've rather lost my appetite these days because of the cold and the stress and insomnia. i'm feeling exactly like in 2003, craving for sparkling mineral water and european food. ana and me went to starbucks at the kyoto tower today, ate cheese blueberry cake and macha frappucino, one of the yummiest things i've ever drank. alas we don't have that in europe!

today ana and me went to the kinkakuji (golden pavillion) and the ginkakuji (silver pavillion). i had already seen the kingakuji in 2003 and although the ginkakuji itself wasn't as impressive as the kin one, the gin's garden was more beautiful. afterwards we met with the others in the gion district and went to a restaurant. sorry this entry's boring but i'm tired and sulky.

ps: save the global warming? that's actually on a bag of a perfume dajana bought today. ...


kyoto

kyoto.

sorry for not updating properly. i had a bad cold those last few days and i couldn't sleep last night at all. we left Tsu and arrived at the temple in Kyôto yesterday. coincidentally there was a buddhist wedding ceremony that evening and as those are very rare (even in japan) we all went down to watch it but after half an hour i was feeling so bad i left and went to bed. i also missed the noh theater performance this morning because i stayed in bed till 3pm. when i finally could stand up and walk without almost fainting immediately i went to the sento (public bath) right next to the temple (as the temple itself has no showers) which made me feel a bit better.

i don't know, i'm just really really exhausted and confused at the moment. the weather is strange, i've got mosquito bites all over my arms and my neck and back hurts from my heavy luggage i had to drag from Tsu to Kyoto yesterday. i've just watched hard candy with the girls in my room, now we're all lying around reading manga (the temple has hundreds of manga, it's crazy!) before going to sleep.