Trip to Japan. Aftermath part 2 - Osaka and Nara

We planned a very brief stay in Osaka, just one night, before moving on to Nara, Osaka is a city with a very long history, however there isn’t that much to see there! Just the castle, which is a modern replica, a museum and a few temples, however in hindsight I wished we’d had a bit more time there because the ryokan (Yomatoya Honten) was VERY nice compared to what we had in some other places, and right next to Doutonboristreet - a very lively night spot.

Not only was the room bigger for the money and better furnished but the welcome we received was special compared to other places. We were escorted to our room by a kimono-clad lady who proceeded to serve us tea and cake before leaving us to settle in. About 15 minutes later the head of housekeeping also dropped by to introduce himself and ask when it would be convenient to lay our futons out for us, leaving us more tea. On top of this we were given a gift of some chopsticks which came in handy during the trip when the people in the convenience stores forgot to give us any…

               However we weren’t here to stay in hotels but to look at the sights, so we spent a morning looking around Osaka castle, very impressive from the outside but on the inside it’s like any other museum, you have no idea you’re in a castle, not surprising when you realise it’s a concrete replica built in 1960 or thereabouts… More a tourist attraction than anything else.

               On leaving some children who had just done the tour asked to take a picture with us for some reason (we were the only foreigners there maybe...) Here's a picture of them afterwards... I just want to add the caption "FIRE!!!" to it... ;-)

                After the castle, quickly back to the hotel to pick up the luggage and off to catch the next shinkansen to Nara.

                Nara was a whole different ball game, for a start, walking down the main street to our ryokan we passed SO MANY foreigners and souvenir shops we didn’t feel like we were in Japan any more. Our room was small but nicely appointed and we could see the main 5 layer pagoda from our window (if you stood on tiptoe and squinted). The city itself was very nice though, small with much parkland, lots of deer...

                There are however only a few things to do in Nara, a couple of temples and the museum. One of the temples is the biggest wooden structure in Japan apparently

and is very impressive with a HUGE Buddha (apparently they can get up to 5 monks in the palm of it when they're cleaning it)

        There's a ton of history to find out about (Nara was the first capital in the 8th century) however the museum is rather special. It’s filled from top to bottom with buddhas and bhodisatvas… Ok for the first 10 or 20 minutes but after you’ve seen your 100th statue and read your 100th piece of card stating the era in which it was carved you begin to go a bit blind. I think we took an hour for the first 100 statues and probable about half an hour for the next 900… Maybe I’m exaggerating a touch but that’s what it felt like!

          All in all, both cities were worth seeing but considering what else there is to see in southern Japan then a day in each to get round quickly is short but enough.