Day trip Archives - Roaming Red Pandas

Nara Deer Park 奈良 and Osaka 大坂

Friday, July 15th and we’re getting to the more tourist-y part of our travels. We’ll be in Nara for 3 nights as a base camp to visit Osaka and just generally take a breather and relax with the deer. There’s a lot more foreigners on the buses and trains as we travel. So much so, that the cashier lady is surprised when Matt spoke to her in Japanese – I guess not many visitors bother to learn much of the language.

Arriving in Nara on and there were images of deer everywhere – posters on the wall, store toys, food (lots of cookies and candy in deer-shape), and even the busses had leaping deer decals on the sides. Nearly every vendor around the park sells stacks of ¥150 (less than $1.50) deer crackers or shika senbei 鹿せんべい. Not all deer are crazy about them, the fawn seemed more interested in the grass.

The hostel we’re staying at is inside the park so we’ll get to see tame deer everyday. There’s more to the park than just deer, though. Multiple designated world heritage sites are in the area, one of the most famous being the Todaiji Temple 東大寺. Within the temple is one of Japan’s largest statutes of Buddha.

Another temple not too far from Todaiji sits on a hill and at night, is surrounded by large lanterns which offers a serene view overlooking the city of Nara.

The next morning we stopped by Todaiji to get a look inside then moved on to Osaka for the day. First stop was the Umeda city for a beautiful 360 degree view of the city. Then, at Umeda Station we stopped at the Pokémon store but with the huge line we decided to come back another day.

At Osakajo/Osaka Castle, we walked around the grounds and special garden before heading over to the nearby concert hall. Back in the day, Ayumi Hamasaki 浜崎あゆみ was similar to Britney Spears in Japan. She just released her 16th album and we managed to get tickets thank to our wonderful Sapporo Tour Guides. Doors opened at 4pm, she started a bit late at 5:15pm and the final-final encore ended around 8:30pm.

Next day, we took it easy by just wandering the park and hanging out with the deer 🙂

Day trip July 13, 2016

Aomori & Sannai-Maruyama 青森と三内丸山遺跡

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Saturday, July 9th we had a slow morning of laundry, breakfast, and packing. Our Sapporo tour guides treated us to an amazing sushi lunch and sent us off with amazing chocolate as we hopped on the 1:35pm train to Aomori. We enjoyed the view from our seaside seats on our 5hr trip down.

After checking into our ryokan 旅館 (we happened to get the same exact room Matt got last year!), we ventured out for some ramen. A ryokan is in a way like an eastern Bed ‘n Breakfast Inn (I’m assuming as I’ve never been to one haha) and the hostess cheerfully directed us to a good local ramen shop. We arrived to an empty shop, but we (Matt) mustered up the courage to ask if they were open. While neither husband or wife spoke English, we were able to place our orders: Matt got the spicy version and I enjoyed the butter/miso. Turns out we got there just in time as when we left all other seats had been taken.

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On Sunday, to start off our daytrip exploring Aomori, we had an easy morning waking up pretty ‘late’ (7am). For breakfast, we decided we’d try non-convenience store food and wandered a bit around town.
A big multi-story building caught our eye and we followed the universal fork and knife symbols to the lower level where we found a fish market! It must have been off-peak hours as it was pretty sparse. Still, we walked along to the end of one row and came across a quaint food stall. After some miscommunication about which side of the corner stall was breakfast versus lunch, we ended up getting a 5-plate breakfast dish with miso soup. The sides we chose were fried fish, two kinds of octopus (we think), and egg たまご. The shopkeepers were incredibly welcoming and a fellow diner even gave us local tomatoes to try. The pictures alone doesn’t show just how amazing the experience was.

Making our way down south to Sannai-Maruyama was a fun journey on the local trains. Sannai-Maruyama is a nationally protected historical site of the Jomon people who settled there 5, 500 to 4, 000 years ago. Discoveries in the area include pit-dwellings, pillar-supported buildings, and numerous pottery and stone objects. The largest structure was recreated based off the remanents of large chestnut posts that were 1 meter in diameter.

Getting back to Aomori, we headed over to the tourism center for dinner and dessert. The region is famous for its apples!

Day trip July 11, 2016

Sapporo Day 1 – Hair cuts and walking

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Woke up bright and early again the next morning, this time to get hair cuts (but also because we’re still adjusting to the new timezone). Matt’s appointment was first at Rosy’s Make Hair – no one spoke fluent english, so a picture of Tom Hardy did all the talking. Cassandra’s haircut was on the opposite end of the city and took about 4 laps around the same block until we actually saw the building (it wasn’t hiding or hard to see… we just somehow kept walking past it). Luckily, Salon 77 had someone who spoke a good bit of english. Rumi-chan was awesome and taught Cassandra some japanese (apparently kami is both hair and paper! But it’s written differently: 髪 for hair and 紙 for paper).

We showed off our new do’s by walking to Nakajima park. On the way, we stopped at our first Japanese temple. It was really empty where the only sounds heard were from the monstrous crows. We had a snack of yakisoba and takoyaki at the park entrance before moving on. For being a weekday, there was a variety of ages in people enjoying the park. A small observatory sat on a little hill; the curator, Hiyama-san 樋山克明, had set up a solar telescope and also pointed the main telescope toward the sun for two different elemental filters. We (mostly Matt) spent about 20 mins chatting up the curator and learning about the local science center’s astronomical studies as well as Japanse versions for constellation names.

The picturesque scenery gave us a chance to practice some photography skills. One landmark, known as Hasso-an, was an old teahouse – original date unknown, but there was recorded use in 1700.

Dinner was a special treat of yakiniku 焼肉 which is grilled meat. One can order a variety of meat (different grades/sections) and vegetables and use the grill at the table to cook it to personal preference. Green tea ice cream with mochi and something similar to corn flakes topped off an amazing meal. Our 2nd full day in Japan and we have over 20k steps… this is going to be a long trip.

We pretty much walked in large circles — Somehow Matt had over 30k…

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