Domo!

Osaka turned out to be boring. It's alright for nightlife but it is a butt ugly city. It got leveled in WWII and is one of the cities that just never got over it. It is industrial in the uninteresting way. But I guess it's a good base for exploring other places in the region; I went to Nara on a day trip.

Nara looks very small when you step off the train but it holds 8 temples, shrines and ruins that are on UNESCO's list of world heritage sites; quite impressive really. Everyone talks about Todai-ji as the place to see so I went there first expecting big things ... and I guess that's what I got. Todai-ji is a monster. It's the largest wooden building in the world. When you first enter the gate it looks nice but not too impressive (I've been in Japan for a few weeks now so I've seen my fair share of impressive buildings) But like with Niagara Falls the closer you get the greater the impact. When I left again my neck hurt from all the looking up and going "Holy dung beetle".

Nara had just had the weirdest festival: Deer antler cutting festival o_O
So all the Sika deer that roam the "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara" site were without antlers, heh. A bit odd but it apparently has something to do with protection of locals and tourists. My guess is that some of the males there are very horny (pardon the pun) buggers who are very protective of their harem and in order to give stupid people a fighting chance when they do what comes naturally to them: Not think when faced with a territorial deer; antler cutting became mandatory for all deer on the site. There were a hell of a lot of school kids there that got their first visual biology lesson on reproduction; like I said: horny buggers.
All I got was a couple of shoes full of poo >_<

There were a few school classes that were there to interact with tourists to practice their English. So I managed to say "Good. And how are you?"- "My name is Ane. I'm from Denmark"-"Thank you (for a piece of origami)"- "Bye bye" 10 times ... and I know this because I had 10 pieces of origami in my bag when I came back to Osaka. Kids are cute sometimes ^^

Well, I decided against going to China (too much paperwork involved) so after spending 40 hours on a ferry I'm now in Okinawa. It's a good thing I like the water and sailing otherwise a person might go mad on that ferry trip. There is nothing but vending machines on board and I didn't know that so I hadn't brought any food with me and I only had 200 yen in coins in my pocket. It was a loooong trip from my stomach's point of view. You are put in a room with 40 futons and you can choose to lie there or go out on a small section of deck; I spent a great amount of time reading on deck and watching the waves and occasional flying fish. On the upside I got to practice my Japanese because I met the coolest biker chick (who owns a fish pet shop) who spoke a minimum of English so we had to make do with numbers, my "point and speak" book and impro sounds ^^

Anyway ... I am back in tropical weather and I don't mind that one bit. It suits me ^^
Okinawa is reference heaven for me but probably lost on most of you so I'll just keep it to myself :) And I'll write about paradise later.

See ya'