Patrick: Kobe, Nara, Osaka

This last weekend was one of tourist attractions. On Friday, Professor Hayashi invited his Postwar Japanese Economy class and other SCTI students to visit the Earthquake research center he directs in Kobe. I'm not in the class but I jumped at the chance for a free trip to Kobe. The earthquake center specifically catalogs the destruction caused by the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake. I was expecting some shaking building simulations but unfortunately we had to settle for some computer graphics animation reenacting the calamity. After the long and tedious lecture by the professor, we took the train down to Chinatown. My personal opinion is that Kobe's Chinatown is rather pathetic. It's smaller than Nagasaki's, consisting of just one street, and the food is just as expensive. For dinner, we decided that we couldn't leave Kobe without trying some Kobe steak. So we walked over to the neighboring bustling district Sanomiya. The streets were pretty busy when we arrived. We found some Kobe steakhouses immediately upon arrival. Unfortunately a plate of Kobe steak cost at least 7000 yen. Seeing how Kobe steak was way out of our budgets, we opted for yakiniku tabehodai (all-you-can-eat-bbq). We had 60 minutes to order as much meat, salads, and kimchii we wanted. For the next hour, it was nonstop bbq-ing, eating, commenting on how much Stephanie eats, ordering for the next round, etc. After stuffing ourselves, we found the rest of the group (we split up for dinner) drinking on the skybridge and then I called it a night. It was a shame that we didn't go to the port. Kobe supposedly has one of the best night cityscapes in Japan. Next time...

06012007

The next day, I went to Nara with Daryl and Brian. We met up with Ranaq and Nick afterwards as well. The first thing that struck me as we walked into Nara Park was the awkwardness of seeing deer walking among the crowds of tourists out on the streets. The deer in Nara are completely domesticated, feed on crackers tourists can buy sold by street vendors, and fatter than the ones on Miyajima. One snuck up behind Brian and gave him a friendly lick on the butt. We headed first for Todaiji, perhaps the most worthwhile tourist destination in present-day Nara. The great temple was constructed in the Heijo-kyo era when the capital was located in Nara. It has since been rebuilt 2/3 of its original size. Despite the smaller reconstruction, it is still the largest wooden structure in the world. Inside is housed the largest Buddha structure I've seen to date. It was massive. After that, we ate a quick lunch and met up with Nick and Ranaq. We hiked up to Kasuga-Taisha Shrine but didn't want to pay the steep entrance fee so we ended up taking pictures from the outside. The shrine is the prototype for the Kasuga-style of shrine architecture and was a protector shrine of the ancient capital. The next stop was down the mountain to Kofukuji. The temple is the blueprint model for the style of temple architecture where a corridor surrounds a courtyard with a Great Buddha Hall in the center. Unfortunately, the current extant structures include just the Pagoda and a building next to it. The courtyard is currently under construction; the foundations for the surrounding corridor and Great Buddha Hall having been just laid down. It's really sad how so many historic structures and pieces of art in Japan have been burned down, destroyed in conflict, deteriorated over years of abandonment, or bombed to bits in World War II. I guess it makes whatever's left all the more precious. The Heijo palace site didn't seem worth going to since it has a smatter of reconstructed buildings amidst a fallow field.

06022007

On Sunday, Brian, Jeffery, and I went to Osaka. We met Sayuri, who offered to take us to the aquarium, the largest in the Kansai area. Michael arrived late since he had a sleepless night partying. The aquarium was big but overall not as impressive as the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was kind of funny actually, since one of the exhibits featured the sea life in Monterey Bay. The Japanese people were so astonished by the swiftness of the fat sea lions that are commonly seen lounging lazily on the rocks up and down California's coast. By far the best features of the aquarium were the whale shark, the manta ray, the huge crabs, the fat and molting penguins, the giant sea turtles, and the creepy jelly-fish. After the aquarium, we returned to Kyoto and met up with Daryl and company for dinner. It was Daryl's birthday and we took him out to kaiten-zushi (sushi on conveyor belts). Jason was really hungry since he had just woke up a few hours ago (it was 7 pm when we met) due to clubbing the previous night away with some friends in Osaka. And dinner was filling. After dinner, we ate some cake at Lipton tea cafe... delicious cakes. And then we bought some drinks and sang the birthday song down by the kamo river.

06032007