Well, A New Post

Hello,

Today, we "missed" the train again. But we somewhat planned it. Well, the logic for that is that today was one of Japan`s largest festival: the Tenjin Matsuri. And since the last train "home" to Nagoya was att 22:30, we felt that we should experience the festival proper like instead of rushing to catch the last train. So, we enjoyed ourselves at the immense festival and then went here again to the Media Cafe Popeye (where we today are in booths with them advanced massage-chairs, nice). Kind of needed the internet too, since we kind of need to book a few hotels, since we pretty much have the remainder of the trip planned. And today we were smart enough to bring a couple of things with us, for example glasses so we could change from contactlenses.
Anyway, what we`re planning to do is to tomorrow go to the Izu-Shoto Islands (semi-tropical islands south of Tokyo, nice) and stay there for a week (since ferries only go at weekends. They take 8 hours by the way). After that we`re planning to go to Kyoto and stay there for some 5 days, and then spend the remaining couple of days in Tokyo again, browsing for electronics and such to bring home (like laptops, since they`re cheap here. Although I`m going to miss the last three letters of my native alphabet, but I think you can modify your keyboard). After that, it`s done. Our trip to Japan is over. Kind of sad. You people back home won`t have an interesting blog to read no more.

Well, enough about that. I`m going to take the time to post another post since I have a lot of time, and if we go to the islands tomorrow we won`t really have internet, to say the least. We won`t even have roof over our heads, since were planning to camp all week long (hotels there are way too expensive, and the trip there ain`t a dance on roses either exactly).

Talking about roof over our heads; here`s a couple of pics from a hotel we stayed at last week. Really swanky with two bathrooms and two large beds. It was the biggest room at that floor, about two times bigger than the rest. Sweet.

Here are some pictures from Nara, the big temple-complex I mentioned in the last post I think. It`s the second most important of its kind in Japan, next to Kyoto. As I mentioned (I think) earlier, the park was packed with deer, some 1200 of them. And it wasn`t like it was an enclosed park; there were roads through it and houses. it was practically right in the city. Really, frickin` odd with tonnes of deer walking around, begging food from tourists who bought "deer-crackers" and fed them (which made them go in a kind of frenzy). I bought some and went to a small pack of them; one was so eager it started eating my shirt (which made it nice and slimey).

Anyhoo, they seemed to be leading a rather good life, since they`re considered messengers of God, they`re treated the same. I have some pics of them below as you can see. The foal (kid?) is quite cute.

The picture right below is of an old pagoda, impressive to say the least.

This next pic is of the great hall containg a large bronze buddha. It`s the largest wooden building in the world (and it`s not even as big as it should be; the building today is only two thirds of what it used to be). The buddha is immense also. One of the largest in the world, weighing some 467 tonnes in bronze, and 130 kg in gold.

The next picture is from Osaka (where we`re located now). It`s of the world`s largest ferris-wheel, can`t remember the height exactly, but I think it was 112 meters or something. Good views from up top.

Next is the Osaka Aquarium, which is huge. They have the world`s largest aquarium-tank (we`ve seen a lot of "world`s biggest/tallest etc. lately), the biggest tank is a simulation of the Pacific Ocean, and if I remember correctly, the specifications for it is: 9 meters deep, 20 something meters wide and containg 5400 tonnes of water. The real attraction is of course its inhabitants, with the most famous being two whale sharks (the world`s largest fish, wicked!)

The aquarium was truly awesome, they had a plethora of sea-creatures (and even some land-crawlers!). We spent the whole day there, and it was well spent. I took a lot of pictures and videotaped even more. I won`t (of course) upload all the pictures, but as usual a select few. Hope you like `em.

Otters!

Some gigantic, odd fish

This I thought was funny, they had penguinbabies in a small freezer-boxes of sorts. They just stood there and "enjoyed" the cold.

The awe-inspiring wahle shark it self.

Some creatures whom`s name I sadly can`t remember in english. (If someone knows, please comment.)

Some jellyfish.

This is from today, at the Tenjin Matsuri. The amount of people there was crazy. A single block probably contained more people than the entire Aland Islands.

The first pic is from some boats from the procession through the river (it was a shinto-festival). A lot of shintoists.

The following two pictures are of some of the crowds by the many, many stands selling all kinds of food (most of it fashioned on to a stick). I ate the Osaka-famed Octopus-ball (a piece of octopus with dough around it and then deepfried, nice).

This is another picture of the huge masses, but this is from one of the bridges where you could see the fireworks better. The fireworks were extraordinary by the way, truly wonderful. Must have cost a load though. But damn, were they awesome.

This is a movie I took from the the festival when it`s coming to an end, when they carry the massive shrine back to the temple where it belongs (the whole festival is a procession of the shrine through various parts of the city and the river). The shrine weighs a lot, don`t know how much, but don`t plan on stealing it if you`re not at least 25 people.

Well, that`s that for this post. Hope you enjoyed it. If everything goes as planned, there won`t be a post for a week or so, so bear with us.

Have a blast!

(PS. Thank God for Bandit Rock Uppsala web-streaming. It`s awesome to hear some good music when you`re sitting here writing. DS)