Osaka is one of our favorite Japanese ports. We arrived just after 8am and we took our time preparing to leave the ship for the day. Our plan was to visit the ancient capital of Japan, Nara, which is about an hour away by subway. The tourist information office at the port is terrific! They have all sorts of maps and printed step by step instructions on how to reach nearby attractions. There's also WIFI and a money changer.
Armed with the train knowledge, we walked up the street from the port a few blocks to the Osaka train station, purchased our train tickets, and headed off on the Green Line from the Osakako station (C11). We rode about 45 minutes to the Ikoma station (C27) transfer point. From there we caught the direct train to Nara (end point for the train). I should note that it's possible to do this trip on Japan Rail (JR), but their Nara station is a bit farther from the NARA Park that we were planning to visit.
Coming out of the subway station there is a pretty fountain and one just walks direct to the park. What really surprised us was the sheer quantity of wild deer wandering the streets, pathways, and monuments within the park area. It was also funny to see the deer crossing the streets using crosswalks. There are vendors selling little packages of deer feed in the form of 3" thin wafers for 150 yen. We bought a package and it was fun to feed the deer. Some of the deer became mildly aggressive when the food ran out. It was also fun to give pieces of cracker to children and let them feed the deer (with the parents permission, of course).
Within the Nara Park, the principal sites that we visited were the Todaiji Temple with the Giant Buddha and Kasuga Takisha Shrine plus the 5 Story Pagoda. Along the way we found a little local restaurant & gift shop and enjoyed some terrific noodle soup. When we walked back to the subway station, we discovered a 350 meter long covered shopping mall and I took many pictures of fake food which the Japanese take to an art form. There's also the nearby scenic Sarusawa-Ike Pond. I was able to take a few photos of a Kimono clad couple which they appreciated.
After retracting our train ride back to the port area, we did a little shopping in the shopping mall at the port before reboarding the ship around 5pm for a 5:30pm all aboard time. It was another ASIA dinner theme in the Lido and we enjoyed the premium sushii that is served at this dinner event. We enjoyed dinner with Marilyn and Erik and later went to the cast show of "Classique" which is my favorite of the shows.
We also learned that we had $351.11 in unused promo credits that needed to be used by tomorrow. So Angela went on a jewelry shopping spree. Per the clerk in the shop, it's a quite frequent happening near the end of cruises. I also learned that it's very important to know whether any credits that are posted to one's account are refundable or not. If they are non refundable, casino draws or cash advances can't be used to offset the promo credits.
We also learned that we had a separate disembarkation time from our traveling companions, but I was able to exchange the luggage tags for the same color and number as our companions.
Tomorrow we arrive at our next port at 2pm, so it will sort of be like a sea day. Personally I would rather spend an over night in a port and skip a port with a late arrival. But I also understand that getting from Port A to Port B takes a specific amount of time that is hard to vary unless there are long distances with a lot of sea days. We've not decided what we will do, but we'll apply our first rule of travel: just show up. Stay tuned.
Some readers have asked why I don't include pictures in the blog. I have a couple of reasons for the lack of pictures. First, pictures equal bandwith and that's a precious commodity while traveling. It also takes a fair amount of time to resize pictures before uploading to my blog. Second, I try to write in a style that brings the reader along in the journey. The mind is a wonderful thing. Third, if one searches the internet, there are quite possibly much better pictures that I can begin to produce.
If you are a reader who really wants to see pictures, I do post a few on Facebook. Send me a friend request to be able to see them.
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