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Published: April 30th 2007
Osaka Ryokan
About to crash for the nite in our sexy Yukata's.. Well after three and a half years of talking and planning it took one random phone call and 10 billion consecutive e-mails last year and Crumps and Chelle had their ticket booked to Japan!! FINALLY! So first stop Osaka. I flew down to Osaka to meet the two an had great plans of hiding at the airport and watching them panic when no one was there, seeing how they would communicate to find their way around, but Crumps conveniently foiled this plan by spotting me and looking directly at me as soon as she walked through the arrivals gate… so we headed into Osaka city and chilled at out our Ryokan (traditional Japanese style hotel) that nite.
After a long flight, I introduced them to the art of Japanese bathing - which is communual. Chelle decided to enjoy the moment by spraying us and the room with the shower head. The next day, we met up with my Osaka friends and headed to Nara where we went to lots of temples and shrines and then of course the famous Nara park where the deer rule the park, we got rammed, head butted and trodden on, but I guess thats all
Nara Cherry Blossoms
We missed most of the cherry blossoms, but heres chelle, Koichi, Hitomi and Crumps under a few of the last remaining ones. part of the experience.
That nite met we up with more mates and hit a small and funky takoyaki (octopus balls) restaurant, and ate and drank, then drank and ate more, and drunk.
The next day, we headed to Kyoto and met one of my good friends there (Emi) who took us to this really funky market at one of Kyotos oldest temples. You could spend a whole day there, but we had other things to see/do so did it in about 2 hours. It amused me to see the girls do similar things that I did when I first came, like Crumps buying these fried potato things covered in what she thought was salt only to find out it was really sweet as and was actually covered in sugar, and chelle buying this porcelain ring, realizing only after she paid for it that it was actually 20 bucks not 2 bucks… we then cruised to another temple and headed to a delicious dinner with Emi and another good mate Ken.
The next day, we jumped on an early shinkansen to Tokyo, and I took the girls to Harajuku to check out all the people walking around in
Nara Temple
Putting in incense.. the smoke is meant to be goood for you... space man, Cinderella, gothic, aluminum and plastic outfits as if they were blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Funny thing is when they walk around japan, get on trains etc. no body even looks twice. For such a conservative country and culture, when stuff like that becomes plain as white toast it’s great! At about 11am that day we remembered it was my birthday (even I forgot) and had a dinner to get to and we headed to this cozy izakaya for the nite for more food and drinks, drinks and food.
The next day just cruised Tokyo again and showed the gals the bits that really make Japan, like the crazy Shibuya crossings, the Manga kisatens, the hello kitty stores and the photo sticker machines which bring photo stickers to a totally new level. This involved crumps and chelle dressing up in Kimonos and I got a lovely maids outfit. Needless to say, I’ll leave those photos out of this blog.
Chelle and Crumps, thanks so much for coming over, was awesome having you guys here, my apologies for the small white fibs. Such as telling you that the candle at the temple could not be blown out,
Nara Temple
umm.. i didn't think chelle would actually drink it.... and that the one person that could was holy (similar to the sword in the stone story). I gasped and almost fell over when I saw you actually trying to blow it out!! And about that water in front of the temples, umm... its really just to wash your hands, its not really meant for drinking, (but if it makes you feel any better I actually found out that it is actually clean water most of the time) etc. but hopefully it made the experience more fun… and will become funnier and funnier over time… right??
Anyway, was great having you over (THANKYOU!) and looking forward to seeing you both in Niseko next!!
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