April 1998 - email8
Subject: Fam time contd. contd. D13  4/17

        Welcome to Nara. We found ourselves outside of a train station, ready and willing to go, but with no idea where to go.  Mark and ma asked for help in the 'eki' and after that, we were on our way. A good 20 minutes later, ever notice that it's never a bad xx minutes late, had to ask, we arrived at the 'ryokan' or japanese style hotel. A nice place. 3 rooms, K and me; ma, M, and E and M and T. Venturing time!!

        Out and about in Nara consisted of: The Map eating Deer, the  biggest Buddha, no bikes, but rather an arcade, Fluffy, hot bath. The map thing was hillarious! Ma had a deer grab the map out of her hand and just walked away! She didn't even notice it for a few seconds. After that she faught with it to get the map back! SHe was giving it food and nothing worked. Eventually the deer let go and my ma got back the map.... with a little bit of it missing. : ) Funny stuff it was. She was fighting with a DEER! It was a little deer as well. Quite the funny incident.

        We saw the biggest Buddha that exists! IT's HUGE!!!!! Within this building, a fairly large one since it has to house the biggest Buddha that exists, we found a hole in a support beam. Yup, they thanked us and gave us a free ticket to Disney, too bad we went already. Bummer. sure, ok. We found the hole of enlightenment that is in one of the support beams. If you can pass through safely then it is assumed that you will be granted luck or find enlightenment to something. Kenny was the first through from out group. I followed, doing it while some students were doing it. Then TREE went through! Well done tree!!! Meg adn Ev also got through. A very cool thing... oh yeah... let's go to the video tape.

        We, everyone at the temple, were lucky to see the brother of someone from the emperors family. I don't remember his name... I'll try to get the name for ya/me after I get up in the mornin'. Which mornin that is, I don't know.  : )  hehehe. got the picture. T and M then took one of the man pulled rides to the next temple, while everyone else, including myself, walked through the woods. It was BEAUTIFUL! ahhhh, the peace and quiet! Ahhhhh, it was so nice to see green trees every where again. Joy and Bliss ran through me. Ahhhhhh.

        Bikes... Kenny had been looking fwd to this since the trip was thought of, but it was not to be. It was suggested that we walk for it would be difficult to use them because of the terain. Bummer for the Kenn-ster. Oerking him up was a NECESSITY! Had to get him into high spirits or the day would have been, well, reallllly long and hard. Notice how ENJOYABLE and FUN weren't in that sentence. Right-toe, you understand... Y? N? let me know if you don't. Later we hit the arcade because Kenny really wanted to go there. A decent trade off for him. I was glad just to see him havin fun throughout the day. He really is a great kid. Good luck to you Ken, it's gonna be tough, but you'll get through it by putting your best self forward. Go with it mr fuzzy.

        Short story abot Fluffy. I recorded a small segment on the video for the kids. I was trying to do something simple/boring, simple/funny and I think it worked becuase of what happened. I basically said.. "here are 2 fuzzy children.." long pause. more of a pause, then Kenny said "I'm fuzzy." That's it. If you see the video you'll possibly laugh, if not --- then this was a waste of time. heh heeee/ gotta keep ya guessin.

        End of the day.... HOT BATH. Not an 'onsen' or hot spring bath. Just a hot bath in the ryokan. It was ohhhhhh, so nice. K, M and I chilled out and roasted for a while. It was nicely nicely. Ahhhhh, I need to go to a real onsen. Grrrrrrr. muussss----ttt g---ooooooo. Last day to travel is tomorrow..> Osaka bound. Lookin fwd to this stuff. hehehe. sleep well you happy ppl. I will. BOO! i said... what was that again? Ohhhh yeah.... bai bai or bye bye.

D14  4/18

        Awoken by the madness of king george and his mad men singing, "How many roads does a madman walk down, before he sees it's the same. How many times must I kick your head, before you fall back asleep. The answer my fiend, isn't in the wind. The answer is ... uhh, I forget where, but it's there. yeah. uhhh, huuhhhuuhh, yeah. The day started with everyone trying to maitain a quiet lull in the ryokan. Mission kinda accomplished. It's tough to keep a loud family down. Go fam, go fam, go go go, go fam!  : )

        We headed out for breakfast and found our way to McD's. A good healthy start with McD food. mmmm mmmm. yummy pancakes. I liked very muchly. yummmmm. After that, on to OSAKA! What was it like? Why the question? Dunno, thought I'd be like those reporters on t.v. that are just about to tell you what happened regarding their present locations recent event. Anyway, here's my thoughts and other things that I call -- .  I traveled around Osaka by myself allowing my to dig into the area without much interference. In general I find it that Osaka is the New York of Japan. Y? People in Osaka were, as one might say, QUITE DIVERSE! People with lots, LOTS, of body piercings. Just one thing that differs from the Tokyo area. On the train to Osaka we came across a guy that was BLITZED!! He kept saying "I'm the Japanese Al Pachino." No idea what that meant, but he was insistent that he was such. He also WREAKED of fish. peeeewwwww!  On the street some guy was in front of me, heard my umbrella clicking on the ground, decided to see what it was and about 3 steps later, fell on the ground. Again, blitzed!!

        The area around the station was very dirty. Rusted stairs, boxes, cigarettes, junk, etc. was all over the place. I was quite surprised. It was not as clean as Toyko, a wild thought. It had it's redeeming qualities; like Tokyo the people were polite. People would not run out in to an intersection causing a traffic jam. To me it was just to New York like. I'm more of a 'Boston' person - compare that to yourself if you want to understand why I'm saying what I'm saying.

        Prices were the same for just about everything I saw. I was only there for a few hours -- maybe 3 1/2.  Stores were clean, people welcoming everyone - that same as most everywhere in Japan. It was an interesting experience that was needed for me to understand the Japanese culture in greater detail. Mission not accomplished, nor will it ever be accomplished. So much stuff to do, learn learn learn.

        Back to Tokyo via shinkansen and back to the stuff of which I'm accustumed. Lucky me. A good trip it was. Will do more traveling in the future. Where to? Got me, but somewhere to the North is required. bai bai.
- posted by garyploski @ 4/17/1998 07:08:00 PM