Onwards to Tokyo

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

On the train from Nara to Tokyo

Dad and I had a great day wandering around Nara today. We woke up in….. uh….. somewhere. For some reason the name of, oh wait…. Hiroshima. We were in Hiroshima. We stayed in K’s House youth hostel again. But this time we got a Japanese style room. It was a pretty nice room, though the walls were kinda thin. Didn’t bother me though. After we woke up, Dad made eggs, we cleaned up and headed for the train station. We hopped on the Shinkansen (bullet train) bound for Osaka, then made our transfer to Nara on the local JR lines. It was commented on at the hostel how lucky we were to have these JR Rail passes. (JR or Japan Railways, is a conglomeration of several large rail companies in Japan that covers pretty much the whole country. It also includes many busses and 2 ferries.) These rail passes cost us about $500 each, but are good for unlimited travel on any JR service free of charge. (with the exception of the Nozomi class shinkansen but that’s ok, the Hikari is plenty fast.) Now $500 seems pretty steep for two weeks on the train. But these train tickets cost around $80 each way, more depending on how far you plan on going. Dad and I have been on the bullet train pretty much every day so far. Plus the local trains and the few busses we have been on. These passes have no doubt paid for themselves already. Plus, if we bother to stop at a ticket counter, we can get reserved seats at no extra charge. (Although the non-smoking reserved car was full today) Speaking of these rail passes, we just realized that we left the bag we meant to pick up in Kyoto in its locker at the train station. So we’ll have to get back on the train and get that before I go to the orchard.

At any rate, once we actually arrived in Nara we walked from the train station to the park. On the way we saw a store selling Tabi shoes that we were going to stop at on the way back, but on the way back we either missed it or the guy had closed for the day. We were disappointed. The park was great. Nara is full of dear. They didn’t look that good though since they were all in the process of losing their winter coats. The structures were great though, and the cherry blossoms were blooming. The park was pretty busy, but it really just added to the whole experience. We got in and saw Daibutsu (the big Buddha). I took tons of pictures as usual. I’ve been taking at least 600 photos a day. Replicas and blurry pictures aside, that still leaves me with quite a few photos at the end of the day. It’s going to take me a while before I get everything uploaded to the web to share with you all. I’m thinking about making a power point or something too. We’ll see how ambitious I get. Anyway, after we took in the sights at Nara we headed back to the train station bound for Tokyo.

Dad doesn’t really want to go to Tokyo for anything. But there are a few things that I want to do there. I’m looking to see the Giant gundam statue and the anime district. It’s not the weekend, so I’m not sure if we’ll see people dressed up, but I still want to go. Also I want to experience the Biomass that is Tokyo. Hopefully I’ll be able to pick up some souvenirs and stuff while I’m there too. Anyway, that’s all for now. Hope everybody is doing well.

~Daniel