Tuesday, August 09, 2005

do, a dear, a female dear

that song was stuck in my head all day!!!

i've never seen so many deers in my life. male, female, babies, walking around, following tourirsts and eating anything they can find, such as my friend's map of nara.

nara has a lot of incredible sights to offer, such as a gigantic buddha. it was so big! it's one of the biggest in the world and the biggest in japan, but i wasn't expecting such grandeur. it's hard to describe, really, but the thing just took my breath away. the entire temple was spectacular as well... too bad that i forget the name of it right now. at the end of the round around the temple, you could buy a tile for the renovation of the roof for 1000Y (about $10) so myself and 3 other guys from the hotel where i was staying in kyoto buoght one together. we wrote our name, our origin and the date. really cool! it's a great thing to do i think, a great way to spend some yen!

after we just kept walking, and eventually stopped at a noudle place in a really cure area near a temple. conversation got heated around the palestine/israeli conflict, and anyone who knows me knows that 1. i'm no longer allowed to talk about this issue and 2. the thing was not a good conversation to have. but regardless, i think we both came out good, altghough ultimately not sold on the other's position...

then, the light festival started around the parc/temple complex in nara. it was so incredible! candles everywhere lighting the temples and pathways. it was really magical, and i'm happy that i got to see it (and that i can see it again tomorrow night).

i'm staying at the youth hostel here and it's really huge, filled with young (very young) asians that are not very quiet... the place feels like a bad university dorm and is pretty depressive compared to the wonderful place where i was staying in kyoto.

but... i got to take a shower japanese style: ie, everyone naked, together, sitting on buckets trying to rince off soap the best we can. glad i won't be doing that often, not out of discomfotr but out of the fact that it's not too easy to rince yourself and so forth...

nara is a great city for sights but it's not at all what i expected. i was thinking that that it would be more like nagano, small and quaint and yet with great urban flare. but this is a huge city, it just so happens that the sights are close to the train station... but visiting this city could have been done out of kyoto instead of living here. but new cities are always good to try out!!!

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