So, this moment of clarity and pretentiousness occurred during my weekend to Nara - Well, planned for a weekend in Nara, but ended out to be maybe less than 24 hours in the end. We had initially thought that going to Nara from a larger city such as Nagoya would make it quicker and easier to get to, but turns out not to be the case, as we found out soon enough after an riding a bike with a flat tire home as fast as possible to just miss the scheduled train to Nagoya, and the well-intentioned but seemingly ill-informed train driver in between Nagoya and Nara. We asked the train gu what was the fastest way to Nara, and told us to get off at a different stop than we had planned, and was even so nice as to stop the train at the station we were to get off and walk to the end of the carriage to us to tell us that was our stop, and would get us to Nara quicker. Unfortunately, after 5 hours of train riding, we found this not to be the case.
But our time in Nara was pretty awesome - turns out, just seeing the two main sights in the area can adequately fill a short weekend escape. We ended up visiting the nearby Daibutsu (Big Buddha), and seeing the hordes of sacred deer in the park. They were pretty cool deer, but I think I was a little disappointed when I saw them up close, since they kinda look like kangaroos. I wonder if Japanese people think the opposite when they come to Australia...
But see the similarity? It's kinda like how Goofy and Pluto are both apparently dogs. I still don't know how Mickey keeps one as a pet and hangs out with the other one though. Kangaroos are the like the Goofy to Pluto-like Deer. But they were still cool nonetheless - I got swarmed by like 10 when they all thought I was feeding one of the deer, and being Japanese deer, also bow as well! I ended up bowing and looking like a tool getting all the deer we encountered bow back though.
The visit to Nara also meant a visit to the Kasuga Shrine, which was cool, but a bit similar to most other shrines and temples here. I think I'm getting to the templed out point now, since temples slightly different, but still the same after a while. I used to think "wow, this temples amazing!" but it's degenerated to a feeling of "oh, this one's red...". So I think I might have give the temple/shrine visiting a break and explore other traditional Japanese culture to fill my Japanese quotient, which now thinking about it, may be difficult since the only other Japanese culture I can think about is Karaoke...
But see the similarity? It's kinda like how Goofy and Pluto are both apparently dogs. I still don't know how Mickey keeps one as a pet and hangs out with the other one though. Kangaroos are the like the Goofy to Pluto-like Deer. But they were still cool nonetheless - I got swarmed by like 10 when they all thought I was feeding one of the deer, and being Japanese deer, also bow as well! I ended up bowing and looking like a tool getting all the deer we encountered bow back though.
The visit to Nara also meant a visit to the Kasuga Shrine, which was cool, but a bit similar to most other shrines and temples here. I think I'm getting to the templed out point now, since temples slightly different, but still the same after a while. I used to think "wow, this temples amazing!" but it's degenerated to a feeling of "oh, this one's red...". So I think I might have give the temple/shrine visiting a break and explore other traditional Japanese culture to fill my Japanese quotient, which now thinking about it, may be difficult since the only other Japanese culture I can think about is Karaoke...
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