Japan: The most EPIC Easter I have had to date

Oh my goodness. This Easter Sunday was one of those days you just cannot possibly make up. I mean, you could, but it would take quite the imagination. It solidified in me that I was no longer just in love with the idea of Japan, but Japan itself, and especially Osaka. Bear with me as I go into excruciating detail about the entire day :)

MIND YOU, AS THIS STORY PROGRESSES THE TOPIC GETS A LITTLE BIT MORE ON THE ADULT SIDE JUST A LITTLE BIT. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ SUCH THINGS, STOP WHEN I MENTION ZERROES BAR.

Picture time (the least I can do for you bearing with me)!! This first set is scenery on the way to our first stop of the day: the Nara Deer Park & Temple:

Japanesey architecture!

This might be an urban area, but Japan made sure to greenify it

I really appreciated the wall murals

And so the story begins...

I woke up before 7am to get ready to go to the Nara deer park. I honestly was not too excited about it, but since I was in Japan, I was giving everything an open mind. The deer park turned out to be really quite something. There were more deer running around than we usually have squirrels in the US.  And the deer will come right up to you, bow, and then you can feed them.  (Cue pictures of deer and temples)

Through the trees you can see the MULTITUDE of deer!

(and in case you wanted an up close view)
Deer are normally cuter, but it's early spring
so they are molting

Creepy temple guardian.
Usually I try to be more culturally sensitive, but
this guy is just too creepy for sensitivity

People!

Deer!

Cherry blossoms!

Nothing really to say!

A horned temple (imagining the reasons Parth would come up
with for the horns on this temple (carefully chosen words))

I know I gave Parth a hard time about this,

but I was secretly taking pictures of (almost)

all of the cherry blossoms too ^.^

Half cherry blossom, half temple. This is as artistic as I get.

Japanese (Korean?) architechture

Horned temple again...

The ipod couldn't handle the lighting, and while
someone (probably Parth or Crystal) protested no
one bothered to take the picture with another camera

People. Temple. Cherry Blossoms. I <3 Japan.

I FOUND THE EASTER BUNNY!!!

The view from the temple steps

Inside the temple

Hit the gong. Call the Buddha.

Boram, faithful CIEE assistant director, about
to hit the gong

Seeing as nothing major happened, I'd say the
Buddha is still asleep.

Stairs that lead to...no where?

Through the slits of the back door. Because my
small ipod lens can do that :)

REALLY BIG log! (seriously though)

After wandering through the temple we were free to explore the grounds on our own for a little bit until it was time to meet the bus. So upon leaving the temple I decided to go back further into the less traversed area. This led me through a little village area where there was apparently a painting club or something (a whole bunch of people with canvases). I continued wandering, choosing the paths that looked less used.

Some tall gold something that caught my eye

Look! More deer!

People painting pictures

Cherry blossoms (again...)

My friend Billy came to Japan and sat at a temple

Eventually I came across a group of maybe 5 Japanese people, led by an elderly man from Nara. Intrigued by my presence so far back on the hill, they invited me to join along. As I was heading The same way, I figured why not. One of the women had a bag of flowers. She gave me one to feed a deer that was in the middle of the path. Then, seeing that I had my camera (iPod) she gave me more so she could get a picture of it. The deer were quite gentle, and walked along with us for a while after that. The view from this height was quite spectacular. I probably walked through the woods with this group for half an hour, but then it was time for me to head back to the bus. We said our goodbyes and parted ways. Back by the bus I sat with everyone and had some green tea ice cream (yumm!) and then we were off towards Osaka again.

 

Me feeding the deer

See the molting patches?

All in all it was a morning well spent. We were given the afternoon and evening free to explore or whatever we pleased. So I turned to Parth and he obliged to come along on a little adventure. I, after all, speak a little Japanese and he speaks none. Silly Parth thinking this would be a 'little' adventure (^.^)

I'm pretty sure he said he would bring the map, but he didn't, and since I didn't feel like going back to my room just to get a map, we ventured off without one. Essentially what proceeded was 4 or so hours of me going to street corners, looking each direction, and picking whichever way looked most interesting. We made our way through the outdoor shopping streets, in and out of a few interesting looking stores (colorful stores, markets for green tea kitkats, the Disney store). We stopped for lunch of udon noodles and tempura, then made our way out of the shopping streets.

THE DISNEY STORE. MUST ENTER. (Always a kid at heart)

No, Ranee, that is not your  birthday present.

Must take pictures of all the cute little kids!

The shopping CONTINUES?!?!

YUMMM

Itz a Pokemonz

Yup. That just happened. Makgeoli chocolate (Korean alcohol)

Pocky in Japan, naturally.

We found kit kats! (strawberry cake or chocolate, no green tea)

Subway in Japan. Of...course?

Yes! Avani Madappa, this one's for you!

ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Cute little octopus wants you to eat octopus

Yummy lunch, I ordered in Japanese for Parth and myself

I saw some trees down one of the streets and instantly proceeded towards them. The trees, it turned out, were within a temple. The temple, it turns out, was presently hosting a wedding. And so, that is the story of how Parth and I crashed a Japanese wedding. After getting a few pictures of the wedding party (and the trees), we scooted out of there.

The wedding party

We wandered through the grounds of a few more temples and down some more streets. We sat on a bench for awhile and just talked about, well, I can't really remember what we talked about. Couldn't have been that important (Sorry Parth). But anyways, then we continued until Parth grew tired of me picking streets to wander down so we went back towards what I semi-confidently and fully accurately claimed was the direction of the hotel.

Stones with strings=do not cross this path

Me taking pictures while crossing the road, much to
Parth's displeasure :P

The bench we sat on. #America

The sign above the bench (I have NO idea what
it says)

SO many vending machines!

...with remote controls?

Parth's can-bottle

haHA! Ipod can take cool pictures!

Parth taking a picture of the sketchy alley

I was excited to see Irish things...

and wandered down the sketchy alley...

We end up back here later.

Back at the hotel we ran into Boram and Suzanne. At this point we had maps in hand because we were getting ready to go for dinner (I had been in a dress all day and wanted to change. That was our sole purpose in returning to the hotel). We started to tell them about the adventure we had just had when we realized we had gone so far we had left the map. We showed them pictures of the buildings we saw and they were impressed we had gone that far. Apparently Boram had been just about where we were, but she took the subway. Good exercise I guess?

But anyways, they gave us suggestions on where to go and what to do for the evening. Suzanne raved about this garden somewhere in Namba Parks which sounded interesting, so we decided to find it after dinner. Our evening plans went something like this:

1. Eat Okonomiyaki
2. Eat Tako yaki
3. Eat Turkish Ice Cream
4. Drink Sake
5. Go to Namba Parks

Our evening proceeded more like this:

We wandered down some streets trying to find where to get the okonomiyaki (a pancake of sorts that has a whole bunch of ingredients, literally "as you like it"). We found essentially a food stand with indoor seating. It was good.

Then we set off to find Namba Parks. I'm pretty confident in my ability to follow directions impeccably, so I am once again in the lead (poor Parth). We end up wandering through a shopping mall which claimed to be Namba Parks, and, granted, it was pretty, but it wasn't a park. So after I/we tired of that we left. On our way back I saw a sign with a picture of the park and a distinct landmark in the background. I stopped, stared at the picture, pointed, and said "there. That's where we going." We turned around and this time found the park! We agreed that the garden ON TOP of the mall (no wonder we couldn't find it before?) was absolutely beautiful, especially the views from it, and it would be a perfect date spot (as we crashed a few dates, oops!)

A map on a garage door; it's a wonder we ever got lost

SO much America!

Stitch EVERYWHERE!

Babson Beavers represent!

My attempt at capturing the view from Namba Parks

The Entrance to the park...if only we had found that sooner...

Enough crashing for one day, we continued to find tako yaki (octopus balls, scalding hot octopus balls). Who ever warned us that these were burning hot on the inside somehow managed to under exaggerate. YIKES!!! But they were good. While I ate my octopus (semi contentedly) We got Parth Turkish ice cream. Now, to be honest, there is nothing really special about Turkish ice cream other than the show. It is served by a man in a Turkish outfit, and he plays games with you before handing you the ice cream in a cone. It made for a good laugh.

SCALDING hot. Seriously, like LAVA.

As we walked away we realized: we don't know where to get Sake. So we turned around and asked the Turkish ice cream guy, who happened to give us very specific, very precise directions to a little expat bar called Zerroes. There, after telling our story (this is our last night in Japan and we still haven't tried sake! We are studying in Korea for the semester, spending the weekend in Japan, etc.) to the bar tenders, we procured our sake. I much prefer sake to soju (the Korean alcohol). Well, then I started to talk to the other people at the bar. On the other side of Parth were two girls, one from Canada and one form Australia. Soon after a group of American guys from New York came in. At this point we realized none of us had introduced ourselves. It turns out that the girls were Katie and Katie (one was a Kathleen, one was a Kaitlin, I kid you not). The guys had very standard, non memorable names.

Popcorn 500 yen (~$7)

LIKE I SAID BEFORE, MORE ADULTISH CONTENT FOLLOWS. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Parth tired of talking to them and started talking to a 40 something year old Fed Ex pilot named Ben. He was perpetually not impressed by everything (although I managed to get him to say he was impressed a few times). Ben has been pretty much everywhere (see Parth's blog for the funnier account of this part of the evening: http://semesterofseoulsearching.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/a-study-in-cherry-blossoms/?blogsub=confirming#subscribe-blog ...just ctrl F Zerroes). At one point Ben flew first class on an airplane that allowed him to take a 5 minute shower (now, that might not seem very long for a shower, but considering it's on an airplane, that's pretty good).

Anyways, he was not impressed by Zerroes, and insisted that he buy Parth and I each a shot of tequila (because that is what you do when you are 40 something and in a bar with 20 something year olds) and then have the three of us head to an Irish pub around the corner (remember that one from earlier? Yeah, that's where we went). Here Ben got Parth and I each a Kilkenny beer (apparently better than Guinness? Neither Parth nor I could really tell), and continued telling us the stories of his adventures. This second bar was supposedly the place to be earlier in the evening, but at this point it was pretty much dead. There were a few people left, a woman in a kimono smoking a cigarette, a dancing Korean bar tender. You know, standard bar people after midnight.

So we went back to the original bar. I hadn't been intending to stay very long. I figured pop in, pop out, go to bed to get ready for our final day in Japan. Silly me. Unfortunately there are no pictures to show of this part of the evening, but Parth and I really wish there were.

I sat down at a table of maybe 5 Japanese guys and 1 Japanese girl. Parth and I slowly got their stories. They are all, except one of the guys, Korean by descent. Yet none of them spoke any Korean. Poor Parth, I can use my little bit of Japanese, but he can only communicate with their broken English. The girl had a girlfriend, kind of (it sounded like there was a bit of mis-communication, the girl friend was apparently cheating on her with some guy). They could fluently ask, and asked about every minute or so, "Are you two (Parth and myself) dating?" Insert the international sign for "NO" (arms crossed into an X saying "deng"), then, as all of our new Japanese friends were apparently into girls, they would ignore Parth for a few minutes trying to win my attention. At one point, after once again verifying that Parth and I are not dating, the girl pointed to one of the guys while looking at me and said "he wants sex." Other than the fact that it is probably around 2am at this point, there's nothing to indicate that I would agree to this. So I shut down the proposition and we continued talking a while longer. As Parth describes in his blog:

Basically, I went to the bathroom as soon as we got to Zerroes – and when I got out, Katie was sitting at a table with 5 Japanese guys and a Japanese girl.
As I learned a few moments later, they were all ethnically Korean (with the exception of one, who seems saddened that he was the only native Japanese in the group).
None of the Korean/Japanese/Asian people spoke any Korean, and were all quite, quite, quite inebriated.
Which was affecting whatever little English they actually spoke.

As we talked to them, the one girl (who was wearing blue contacts – quite a striking appearance) turned out to be lesbian, and currently in a relationship with a bisexual girl.
As she told us (multiple times…), her girlfriend was not the most faithful person – she’s been caught hooking up with guys a whole bunch.

Some things never change, eh?
Hormone-crazed teens will be hormone-crazed.

The question that got asked every 45 seconds was – are you and her (in reference to Katie) dating???
“No, we’re not dating.”

This happened quite often.
Oh yeah, Katie also got hit on by every single guy in the group.
And the girl. The girl hit on Katie, too.

She quite didn’t know what to do with herself.

Meanwhile, I was alternately laughing at Katie and feeling quite sad that Katie was getting all the attention (even from the girl!).

Like, what are the odds that, out of all the bars, and all the Japanese girls, we had to find the one girl who wasn’t interested in guys?
It’s a funny world we live in, ladies and gentlemen.

And with that we called it a night.