Golden Week: Nara and Osaka

On our third day of Golden Week, we decided to take a break from Kyoto. We spent the first half of the day traveling to Nara. Nara has many old temples.The main attraction being the biggest Buddha in Japan. I was also super excited to see the wild deer in Nara Park nearby.

On the way to Todai-ji, the temple where the daibutsu is housed, you have to walk through Nara Park. As soon as we crossed into the park, I saw the deer. I thought they looked so cute! It was so cool that they were just wandering the park amidst the people and laying out in the grass.

See? What could be wrong with them?

 There were vendors selling crackers that that you could feed them. I bought a pack thinking it would be fun. Then the deer turned evil. As soon as I had the crackers, they started coming at me. They were even biting my legs to get s cracker. It was funny but a little bit scary!

Go away deer!

My aunt and Uncle bought a cracker pack and actually had a deer follow them all the way through the park. It was really funny! I couldn't believe that this deer was crossing the street and following us for a good two minutes before it gave up.
We finally got to Tdai-ji and were greeted by the largest wooden structure in the world.

It was huge!

We ventured inside and saw the immense statue of the Buddha. It was so interesting. Although when all is said and done, I must say that I like the daibutsu in Kamakura better since it is outside. Although they were built around the same time, the 1200s.

There it is.

 We still had the whole afternoon and night after seeing the Buddha so we headed to Osaka. I was really excited to go to Osaka mainly so I could EAT! Osaka is a foodies dream and the birth place of some of my favorite Japanese foods: okonomiyaki and takoyaki. They have this famous eating street where you walk down and the whole thing is lined with vendors selling only different types of takoyaki. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I started to eat in Osaka, we visited the Osaka castle which is one of the biggest in Japan. It offered a wonderful view of Osaka and also gave us a great Japanese history lesson.

Some perspective on the castle

I'm eating takoyaki in front of Osaka castle. So happy!

The view of Osaka

After visiting the castle, we headed to the famous eating street, dontonbori. It was awesome! I ate so much delicious food and different types of takoyaki: regular, cheese, pizza. We took a break from eating to take pictures with the famous running man. I imitated the pose and had a couple of Japanese people take photos of me. Overall, it was a pretty cool day.

Okonomiyaki! Yummy!

Osaka night cityscape

The original dontonbori

Pizza takoyaki?! Yes, please!

I AM the running man

Japanese style New Years Day

Wow! Things got very crazy at work and I've been sick lately so I'm very sorry that there's been such a lull in the updates. I'll finish writing about my family's visit...eventually... So anyway, my family was here to help my celebrate New Years Day Japanese style. Traditionally, the Japanese celebrate New Years Day and don't emphasize New Years Eve like we do in the States. Most people will go to a temple to celebrate the day by praying, getting a fortune, and eating some good food!
We started the day by going to church in Roppongi. Then, since the we hadn't seen it yet, we headed off to the Tokyo Tower. I had never been to the top before so I was very excited to see what Tokyo looked like from the observatory. Unfortunately, it was not the clearest day so while we could see the awesome layout, we couldn't see all the way to Yokohama or even Mt. Fuji. Still, we all looked out enjoying the view of Tokyo. The view that got my interest was that of Zojo-ji temple. It's a temple right next to the Tower. From above, you could really see the magnitude of the amount of people there. It was incredible.

Why hello there Tokyo Tower

The family with the Tokyo Tower mascot. I have no idea what it's supposed to be...

Look at all of the people!

After our stop to the tower, we quickly headed over to one of the most famous temples in Japan: Senso-ji. I knew it would be crowded but I was not prepared for the crowd that we encountered. Now, I have been to Senso-ji many times before. Never had I ever seen a line. But that's what we encountered when we first got there (well that and the Sky Tree in the skyline).

Hello Sky Tree! I can't wait until you open in March!

Hello line of unexpected people in front of us.

Hello people behind us in line...

We waited in line for about an hour and a half. It wasn't too bad. We munched on snacks and shopped. The main road up to the temple even after you pass through the first gate is lined with tourist stores so we took advantage of that while waiting.

The main temple gate

I also spent my time trying to ninja pictures of girls in kimonos...

Once actually inside the temple, we said a New Years Day prayer. Basically, there is a grand and beautiful statue that you admire. In front of the statue, there what looks like a wooden table with slits in it. You take coin money and toss it in as an offering. Everyone tossed a coin in. True story: my coin actually ricocheted off the back of a temple employ...pretty sure that's some kind of bad luck...so I tried it again successfully with a  100 yen coin. That should balance everything out...right? After the long wait in line, we were all starving! Since it was New Years Day, the temple grounds were packed with street vendors selling all kinds of traditional Japanese food. I made my family try a little bit of all my favorite things! We started with takoyaki (fried octopus balls) and BBQ pork. Then we all split off and got different things: okonomiyaki (a savory pancake), yakisoba (fried noodles), chocolate bananas, and candied fruit. They all really enjoyed the food! Which was awesome because these are some of my favorite Japanese foods.

Enjoying some yakisoba!

After dinner, we got a New Years fortune! I have gotten my fortune before at Senso-ji so I knew that there were English translations of all of the fortunes. You pay 100 yen (about $1.15) and then you shake a metal cylinder full of sticks with Japanese numbers. There's a little hole in the bottom that one of the sticks slides through. Next to the shaker is a small wall of drawers that all have numbers labeled on them. You match the number on your stick to a drawer and there's your fortune! Jenny, Tommy, and I all got good or normal fortunes. Chris got the best fortune. But, my poor mother, she got the worst fortune. When you get a bad fortune, you need to tie it and leave it at the temple to make your luck change.

Poor mom!

Chris is super pumped about his awesome fortune!

After that, we just walked around Asakusa enjoying the scenery and shopping. We had a great time experiencing a Japanese New Year!

Food Spotlight: Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki is a savory dinner pancake. What makes it so fun is you cook it at your table. You also get to pick what ingredients you want in it and, get this, you have to pick the consistency. There's a solid one and a kind of runny pancake. After you pick that out, the batter comes out and you cook it! You get little cooking utensils to flip it and everything.

Cooking it up!

Flip!

Once it's all done cooking, you cut it up into fourths and then add some sauces. There's mayonnaise, fish flakes, and seaweed. At least you can pick what you want. I totally skipped out on the fish flakes...

Yummy!! (Oishii!!)