Japan sights....

The last few days I have stayed in Osaka, taking day trips to various cities in the area by train. The place I am staying is a guesthouse of sorts, run by a Taiwanese landlady. She has a few people that live there, and then rents out rooms in 2 different apartments. It has been really convenient, as it is a few blocks from the subway and in walking distance to a major shopping and restaurant area.

Two days ago I went to a city called Nara, about 45 minutes away by train. Nara is mostly made up of a huge park, which has many beautiful temples and shrines. It also has the largest wooden structure in the world- which was quite a sight to see! Inside that structure was the hugest buddha statue I have seen! I will try to post some pictures, but they definitely won't do its size justice. It was incredible. The other main attraction in Nara's park is that there are about 1000 free-roaming tame deer! They just wander around and come up to tourists, hoping for food (they sell biscuits that you can feed them all over the park).

Yesterday I ventured a bit farther to Kobe, home of Kobe beef, and not much else! The landlady told me about an 'oensen', or hotspring, that is a bit out of Kobe but worth visiting. Visiting hotsprings in Japan is a very popular thing to do, they are all over the country, and the industry has apparently developed a lot in the last few years, so there are huge spa complexes and hotels based around these Oensen. This one that I went to, Arima Oensen, is in a tiny village about 45 minutes outside of Kobe. The town was very quaint with winding roads and tiny restaurants and shops, most selling the famous waffle-like wafers made with water from the springs. Delicious! The hot spring experience was interesting, one I will definitely not forget, and not sure that I will repeat! You are not allowed to wear anything in the hot springs, so I experienced this along with 20 or so naked old japanese women! Definitely a different experience for me. Luckily there were 'instructions' in English, so I knew the proper steps to go through before actually getting into the hot spring.

Today I stayed in Osaka, and made my plane reservations to leave for Tokyo tomorrow morning. I would have liked to go up to the North of Japan, but it was very expensive and I would have been limited on time there before meeting up with Chloe in Tokyo. I booked myself into a hostel, and I hope to just do some day trips from there before meeting up with Chloe and staying at her brother's apartment towards the end of the week. It will be nice to have a travel companion for the next few weeks, and i'm really excited to move on to Vietnam, as all of the travellers that I have met on this trip can't say enough great things about it.

Thats all folks! More from Tokyo!