Day 35 in Japan - ANDORYU! (First visitor)

Today we did a LOT of travelling - see the Google map below. We started at Point (A) (zoom out if you can't see) - our house in Okubo. We caught the train through Osaka, all the way over to the Nara Prefecture to meet up with our first visitor - ANDREW! Andrew is a friend from University who is a Japan expert - he lived here for a year teaching English and did a lot of Japanese at uni. He is also a total champion and karaoke master. He is having a two week-ish holiday here in Japan, and is spending the weekend with us in the Hyogo prefecture. But first, we had to meet him in Nara, where he had travelled with some of his other friends to see some of the temples and castles from the Nara prefecture.


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Soko, Natchan, Rei and Daisuke
with Sentokun, the mascot of the
Nara 1300th anniversary.

We did the obligatory getting slightly lost at Osaka station, but managed to find our way to the right platform eventually and kept on heading through to Horyuji (pronounced Houryuuji, but it looks horrible when you spell it like that) station. There we met Andrew, Rei (his Japanese friend who he met in high school when she came to Goulburn for a year exchange), Daisuke (Rei's husband), Natchan (Rei and Daiske's 1 year old daughter) and Soko (Rei and Andrew's friend from Tokyo). Rode in Daisuke's EL GRANDE to Horyuji buddhist temple, which is one of the oldest wooden buildings in the world. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage site. It had a very cool pagoda and was the first time we'd done the washing ceremony before entering a place. We walked around for a while, and when we had seen most of the sights, just sat around in the shade to get cool. Natchan and I played a fun game of giving each other rocks and saying (or trying to say) "Hai, douzo", which is what you say when you are giving something to someone. Awwwwww, cute.

Horyu-ji temple in all it's glory.

The mobile phone reception was spectacular.
(that's a joke - it's part of the pagoda)

Hai, douzo.

Lunch was kaki no ha sushi - the regional specialty of sushi wrapped in persimmon leaves. But you don't eat the leaves, so really it's just sushi that USED to be wrapped in persimmon leaves. A bit odd.

Thin soba noodles with dashi/soy dipping sayce (tsuyu) and kaki no ha sushi.

Heijo Palace in Nara

After lunch, we went to Heijo Palace - the seat of the Emporer when Nara was the capital 1300 years ago. Exactly 1300 years ago, so there is a year long celebratory exhibition there. Was very cool but very, very hot. We wandered around at a fairly sedate pace, and then realised we shouldn't have taken our time so much, because we all had trains to catch. We had to quickly head to Nara train station to catch the 1.5 hour train back to Kobe to get to...

VISSEL KOBE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A VISSEL KOBE MATCH! Vissel Kobe are our local soccer team. Yeah, they suck, but Japanese soccer matches are so much fun - we chanted and clapped the WHOLE GAME. It was a nil all draw, but who cares? Soccer was the winner on the day (as well as draught beer, hot dogs on sticks and popcorn sold in nets).

We met up with a few other JETs after the match and went for a quick beer in Sannomiya (the drinking and eating part of Kobe) in what ended up being a hostess bar (thanks, Daniel). It was a pretty cool place - the dude behind the bar was a big punk fan, and ended up putting his band's CD on, while the hostess chick (who I actually think wasn't working, but none of us were game to test that theory) was playing with a huge sword called a zanbakuto. Random good times, but we still only stayed for one drink (which apparently made her cry cry).

You heard the sign - get yourself an alcoholic quick smart. 

Andrew and Sam and I headed back to Akashi for a quick izakaya tutorial from Andrew (we are much better now, potential visitors - we even know how to identify most gizzards), and then KARAOKE!

Obligatory karaoke shot - Andrew is probably
mid-Grease Megamix?

We left karaoke at about 3 am and found out how much a taxi from Akashi to our place is (about 3000 yen - doable when we need it) and got a cool ex-french chef taxi driver - he chatted to us in English, French and Japanese, and I think it will be worth catching a taxi just to talk to him again, if I ever see his smiling face behind a wheel. We chatted for a while longer and Andy gave us the stuff he had kindly brought for us from Australia (Vegemite and shot glasses! Thankyou!), before we finally got some much needed sleep. Epic and totally fantastic day with great company!

Food Highlight of the Day: Mochi wrapped in bacon and fried from the izakaya rocked my world.