Travel Blog: Japan Trip 2013 Day 8 - Nara, 日本之旅第八天 - 奈良, 9 Jun 13

日本之旅第八天：6月9日2013年, 星期天 - 奈良
Japan Trip Day 8: 9 June 2013, Sunday - Nara
日本の旅行第八日：６月９日２０１３年（月曜日） - 奈良

It was our last day in Japan! Have to treasure every moment we had. We took the train to Shin-Imamiya Station and transferred to the JR Yamatoji Rapid Service. The whole trip was 690 yen each. We arrived at Nara in about one and a half hours. We got a local map of Nara from the train station and then proceeded to navigate our way to Todaiji. Of course I made use of my GPS on my smartphone as well. We walked along the local streets and saw some shops selling local fruits, clothing, souvenirs etc.

Tickets to Nara.

Welcome to Nara!

We were here!

Some Shika-san cookies.

We got a local map of Nara to navigate around easily.

We came across a beautiful pond along the way, before we arrived at a five-storey pagoda right outside Kofukuji, another temple worth visiting. That was where we saw the first deers of Nara. As we walked on towards Todaiji, more and more deers could be found wondering around the park. They were also many people selling deer rice crackers, called shika senbei, at 150 yen a pack. Many tourists would buy these snacks to feed the deers.

Beautiful pond in the middle of the park.

Locals praying to a statue of a god.

A majestic five-storey pagoda.

Shika senbei (deer rice crackers) can be bought from these sellers throughout the park.

The deers were really everywhere. And so were their dung lol. They were very tame and either slowly walking around grazing or lying on the ground half asleep. They were really adorable and cute! And then there was also some bazaar or festival going on in the park area near the Nara National Museum, so a lot of locals gathered there to have fun.

Look at how tame the deer is!

"Where's my shika senbei?"

Tame as they may seem, but once provoked, they could do some serious damage!

These fist-sized deer dung could be found littered around the park. Be careful!

Some bazaar going on. And a performer performing some show for the kids.

I don't think you'll get to see this very often.

Walked past the Nara National Museum.

Some deers found this good spot for resting.

We then continued marching onwards to Todaiji, and as we drew closer to this UNESCO World Heritage site, the roads became more and more crowded with tourists as well as locals. We finally reached the gate of Todaiji, which was a gigantic wooden structure so massive that it would take a minute or two to walk from one end to the other. We merely peeked through the gate to see the Great Buddha Hall which contains the world's largest bronze statue of the Buddha Vairocana as it was so crowded and had to pay an entrance fee just to see a bronze statue. Therefore we hung around the area for a while before turning back to go back to Nara Station for our train ride back to Osaka.

Flooded with tourists and locals alike.

Entrance gate to Todaiji. Just look at the size of this monstrosity.

The Great Buddha Hall of Todaiji.

Some tall weird-looking sculpture or structure.

Back in Osaka, we went back to Dotonbori area and found an Ichiran Ramen restaurant just right next to this iconic building belonging to the Don Quijote, a discount chain store. The structure outside the building looked almost like a roller-coaster. It was by chance we came across this Ichiran Ramen outlet as we were not really looking for it.

The strange-looking building of Don Quijote.

And Ichiran Ramen is just right next to it!

We quickly queued for our seats as soon as we found it. The queuing and dining was a totally new experience. First, we had to purchase our tickets for our ramen from the vending machine, where we could choose the various ingredients and add-ons like kaedama (additional noodles), eggs, etc. This is of course nothing new as almost all of Japanese restaurants do that. But there was also an empty (or taken) seat indicator to show which seats were available. The staff would then bring you to an empty seat once there were vacant seats. Therefore you do not get to choose where you wish to sit or to sit next to your friend. You get your own personal space or cubicle to enjoy your ramen. It seems that they do not really encourage you sitting next to a friend. Probably to hasten the customer to quickly finish their ramen to free up the seat for the next customer. But one of the reasons they have such a concept of seating a customer in his or her own personal space or cubicle is to ensure the customer is fully focused on their ramen to fully savour the goodness and flavour of their wonderful creation. What's also interesting is the way you order the food. You write on a slip of paper to indicate the levels of spiciness, the amount of spring onions, how tender your noodles are, amongst other preferences. Then you present your order chit to the front of your table and press the bell in front of you, where a staff would receive and go off to prepare your ramen. Once your ramen is ready, the staff would lift up the bamboo drapes and present you your bowl of ramen, do a little bow and say some usual Japanese phrases to tell you to enjoy your meal, let down the drapes and then you start enjoying your ramen. All these is done without the staff showing his or her face at all. There is a small tap for you to get cold water from as well so there really is not much interaction needed with the staff. A really unique dining experience only available in Ichiran Ramen restaurants.

Back to my ramen experience, I simply loved the ramen! The taste was just right and the spiciness made it really tasty. This pork bones ramen was, at that time, the best ramen I tasted. It was so good that I emptied the bowl almost immediately. Not a single drop of the gravy was left behind. I was totally satisfied and enjoyed the meal. I would definitely visit Ichiran Ramen again if I go to Japan again. Dear and Nut also enjoyed their ramen as well. We were saying we should have ate at Ichiran much earlier, instead of on our LAST day in Japan.

Can't wait to sink our teeth into their ramen!

Yes you have to get a ticket for your ramen first.

A closer look at the choices available.

An empty seat indicator. How convenient!

Your personal space for enjoying their delicious ramen.

Dear and Nut get to sit next to each other.

Looks like an ordinary tonkotsu ramen...

But it was SOOO good that I finished EVERYTHING!

ICHIRAN Dotonbori
Address: 7-18 1F Souemoncho Chuo-ku Osaka-shi Osaka-fu 542-0084
Business Hours: 24 hours
URL: http://www.ichiran.co.jp/english/html/kin_douton.html

After the satisfying meal, we walked along Dotonbori Canal, seeing tourists enjoy their cruise on the Dotonbori Cruise ship, and decided to fill our stomachs once more with some local snacks. We found a takoyaki store which had a long queue forming, so we decided to try some. It was really good as well! Wished we could stay in Japan longer...

Nice cruise along Dotonbori Canal.

Quite a long queue.

Tastes really good!

We made our way back to the underground shopping areas near our hotel and got some yakitori, and croquettes from the nearby Takashimaya shopping centre. We would finish them on our train ride to the airport.

Spoilt for choice!

Yakitori to take away and enjoy on the train ride.

Looks so yummy but we just bought one to try on our trip to the airport.

Finally, our most dreaded moment was here - checking out of our hotel. The hotel staff of Swissotel Nankai Osaka was very helpful in helping us bring our luggage through a special hotel lift direct to the train station. We were told to make our way to the station, which was just directly below the hotel situated in the same building, as we cannot use the special hotel lift. We met at the station and the staff helped us to get our tickets for the limited express Rap:t train to Kansai International Airport (KIX). The price for the train ride was 1,100 yen. Normally it wouldn't be at this price as there was some promotion going on.

The futuristic-looking train had a cool-looking head, almost like a helmet of some cyborg. The limited express Rap:t train would bring us to the airport, while stopping at a few stations along the way. In less than an hour, we arrived at the airport.

This futuristic-looking train brought us to the airport in less than an hour.

Noooo! I don't wanna go home!!

Our final ticket for our 8-day trip in Japan.

Tired but thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

Goodbye Osaka! Goodbye Japan!

At the airport, we deposited the Mifi in a package that was provided when we received it into the mailbox. Thanks to the Mifi, it was a really simple, easy and convenient way to get mobile internet access for our trip in Japan.

We then settled dinner at some restaurant in the restaurants area of the airport. Ordered some soba and tempura don. Tasted really good as well. What a wonderful way to finish our last meal in Japan.

Looks really appetizing!

All Japanese food look and taste good!

After the dinner, we made some final splurge at the souvenir shops. Royce chocolates, Sakura and green tea-flavoured Kit Kats, Tokyo Banana cakes, biscuits. And that completed our tour of Japan 2013.

It was 10 June 2013 (Day 9), Monday when we arrived in Singapore. All tired but satisfied with our wonderful trip to Japan. When will we go again? Probably soon. =)

It's the end of our trip ~ Nooooo!!!

For a list of the hotels/resorts available for booking in Osaka via Agoda.com, click here.

To make a hotel booking at Swissotel Nankai Osaka Hotel, click here.

Links to our Japan Trip 2013

Day 0
Day 1 - Odaiba
Day 1 - Odaiba Trick Art Museum
Day 2 - Tokyo DisneySea
Day 3 - Shibuya
Day 4 - Tokyo Imperial Palace, Yokohama, Asakusa
Day 5 - Hakone
Day 6 - Osaka
Day 7 - Kyoto
Souvenirs

How I Planned My Japan Trip Itinerary

Japan Trip Itinerary Planning and Preparations

Read More

Travel Blog: Japan Trip 2013 Day 6 - Osaka, 日本之旅第六天 - 大阪, 7 Jun 13

日本之旅第六天：6月7日2013年, 星期五 - 大阪
Japan Trip Day 6: 7 June 2013, Friday - Osaka
日本の旅行第六日：６月７日２０１３年（金曜日） - 大阪

What a sight waking up to the beautiful Lake Ashi right before our eyes! Must be one of the best mornings of our lives lol. We went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Breakfast was not included when we booked the hotel room and we decided to try out the buffet breakfast at 2310 yen (S$29) each. They had quite a good variety of food available. There was also an egg station where a chef cooked up a style of egg of your choice.

Would be so romantic to hold a wedding reception here.

Our room key.

Cereals for the health conscious.

Not so healthy food here.

Choose between A or B, and 1 or 2 eggs.

There's Japanese curry too. Best mixed with Japanese rice.

Double Cheese Omelet with 2 eggs, plus some pastries.

Time to tuck in!

We spent about an hour at breakfast, enjoying the scrumptious dishes that the restaurant had to offer. And when we were done, we saw a drastic change in the scenery outside. We could no longer see Lake Ashi and it was foggy and raining. Visibility was probably reduced to just 200m. There was not much we could do under such weather conditions, but we ventured to the vicinity of the hotel, exploring the area. There was a post office just across the road and we went in to check out what they had.

There were quite a number of interesting things available for purchase. There were stamps and letters featuring Doraemon. Nut bought some stamps as souvenir.

Not so romantic anymore.

A post office just across the road from Hakone Hotel.

Plenty of merchandise to empty our pockets.

More over at the counters.

We then ventured to the right side of Hakone Hotel, where a single-storey building housed a souvenir shop. There were many tour buses parking right outside this souvenir shop. Probably a stopover for all tourist buses. There were many souvenirs for sale, including Evangelion items. Hakone was used as one of the places in the Evangelion anime series and therefore you could find souvenirs with Evangelion designs in most souvenir shops in Hakone. We bought quite a few food souvenirs as they looked irresistible.

Tourist souvenir shop.

Plenty of goodies to bring back as souvenirs.

Evangelion souvenirs!

Time to say goodbye!

One last look at Lake Ashi, this time with all the fog giving it a mysterious look.

We checked out of Hakone Hotel and waited for the shuttle bus to bring us all the way back to Odawara Station. We quickly approached the counter staff to purchase our Shinkansen tickets to Osaka at a whopping price of 11,760 yen (S$149), which consists of a base fare of 7,350 yen and a 4,410 yen fee for an unreserved seat. We could have opted for a reserved seat or a green seat, which would cost much more, but there was really no need to pay extra for such seats. This page here explains the difference between the different types of seats. Next, we stocked up on food and drinks at the stores in the train station for our two-hour plus journey to Osaka. We got ourselves some bento as our lunch and some peach drink. I also got a strawberry smoothie for myself. Mmmm mmm...

The statue of the samurai and his horse over at the carpark right outside Odawara Station.

We will get our Shinkansen tickets to Osaka from here.

Our Shinkansen ticket. Even comes with a nice ticket sleeve.

Got some snacks and drinks from the convenience store at the station before we set off.

Not forgetting some bento as our lunch while traveling on the Shinkansen.

Can't wait to dig into this.

We found ourselves some seats but were all separated from each other since we got unreserved seats. Dear and Nut then had their first experience having bento while traveling on a Shinkansen. Halfway throughout the trip, we had a stopover at Nagoya, I believe. I wanted to switch over to the fastest Shinkansen, the Nozomi, as we were on the Hikari. It would definitely be another experience to be able to tell everyone that we had traveled on the fastest Shinkansen in Japan. Therefore, soon enough, the Nozomi arrived and we hopped on to continue our journey to Osaka.

Momo enjoys her first Shinkansen bento.

We made a switch to the fastest Shinkansen in all of Japan, the 700 Series Nozomi.

We reached Shin-Osaka Station at 2:46pm local time. There we bought tickets to bring us to Namba Station (Osakananba Station). When we alighted, we had a hard time navigating around the station. The underground station was so huge that to walk from one end to another probably took about 10 minutes. Moreover, there was a lot of construction going on, with paths blocked off and therefore we had to follow the temporary signs to navigate around the crowds. It would really be quite daunting for a foreigner looking for directions in such a maze-like underground station. We approached the station master office to ask for directions and eventually arrived at our hotel, Swissotel Nankai Osaka. It was actually connected to the underground passageways to the station, and just next to the entrance of Osaka Takashimaya shopping mall.

After the lengthy and tiring journey, we finally checked into our most expensive room for the whole trip. At first it felt like it was definitely was not worth the money. But after the trip, I began to realize that it was all worth it because it was so conveniently connected to the local train station, as well as the station to board the airport express. Can you imagine having to bring along so much luggage under the hot sun or under a storm just to get to the train station? We could accomplish all of these just via the underground passageways. Moreover, Swissotel Nankai Osaka was situated right in the middle of busy Namba area, with all the high-end shopping brands just right at our doorstep. Definitely worth every cent we paid.

Nice ambience.

The room was quite big but the bedsheets looked so crumpled lol.

All necessities available for our use.

The view from our hotel room.

We rested until 5pm, and then made our way back to the train station, where we bought tickets and traveled to Tanimachi Yonchome Station. There we walked towards Osaka Castle. Along the way, we saw some tall buildings, namely the Osaka Prefectural Police building, and the Osaka Museum of History. There was a huge patch of flowers right outside the police building, so Dear and Nut wanted a picture with it. As we continued along the path to Osaka Castle Park, the paths were painted with beautiful flowers of all colours. It was a really beautiful sight.

The flowers are so pretty that they can't resist taking photos with it.

Osaka Prefectural Police Building

Flowers of all shapes and colours provided a wonderful visual experience.

As we walked along the paths towards to the centre of the park, where the Osaka Castle was situated, we witnessed many other buildings, a time capsule monument, an ice-cream truck, a museum, amongst many others. We got ourselves a different flavour of ice-cream each, before taking pictures of the magnificent Osaka Castle. The gold colours of the castle glistened in the setting sun and gave it a really majestic look.

A long way to go before reaching Osaka Castle.

Wonder how old these castle walls are.

Time to wash your hands clean.

Some English-looking castle-like building which is actually a museum.

Nothing like some delicious ice-cream to complement our very eventful trip so far.

A time capsule monument. This is actually the tip of the iceberg, literally.
A huge capsule is buried underneath. Check out http://panasonic.net/history/timecapsule/

Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle and us.

Osaka Castle again.

Gokurakubashi Bridge and Osaka Castle in the background.

Strange bird resting underneath the bridge.

A local bringing his huge dog for a walk in Osaka Castle Park.

Along with several other dogs belonging to him and his wife.

Osaka Castle from a distance.

We made our way to the nearest JR station, Osakajokitazume Station, after a long way. There we returned to our Namba Station and went to the Life Supermarket to do some groceries shopping. We bought plenty of snacks and desserts. Some for bringing back to Singapore and some for our own consumption for the night and the next day. I simply love the variety of food available at these Japanese supermarkets. The ice-creams and desserts were so irresistible that I had to buy some to try out. So were the cookies and other snacks. We even bought chicken instant noodles as we had craving for it after visiting the instant noodles museum. The total bill for our groceries shopping amount to more than 7,000 yen! That's almost S$30 per pax lol. Crazy tourists.

Melons that cost a bomb.

We look more like locals doing their weekly groceries shopping.

We went back to our hotel room to drop our stuff before heading out again to look for dinner. We walked along the streets donned with neon lights and izakayas lined on both sides. Somehow we ended up back in the underground passageways of Namba Station and decided to feast on shabu-shabu. We were one of the last few customers for the day as it was approaching closing time. We had plenty of meat and veggies for a set meal. Somehow it tasted quite bland. Maybe the Singaporean taste bud is more particular than that of Japanese and wants something more spicy or salty. Not quite satisfactory for us but a good meal nonetheless.

Walking along the streets with neon signs and izakayas.

Time for some shabu-shabu!

Hungry and tired after a long day of traveling and walking. This sure replenished all our lost energy.

Situated along one of the Osaka Namba Station underground passageways.

An English menu is available upon request.

We then visited some of the interesting buildings in the Namba area. There was the Namba Hips, where we visited one of the pachinko parlours. Then we walked along some of the popular tourist spots like Dotonbori, where we took pictures with the iconic Glico running man in the background. Basically we were just sightseeing and walking along the streets filled with colours, lights and plenty of tourists.

Namba Hips

Dotonbori

The famous Dotonbori area featuring the Glico running man.

You'll be silly not to take a picture at this iconic spot.

Another popular shopping street - Shin Sai Bashi-Suji.

Almost every signboard features some huge characters.

Look at this gigantic plate of gyozas.

Fancy some indoor fishing?

Yet another popular shopping street - Sennichimae.

And that wrapped up Day 6 of our Japan Trip 2013. It would take probably more than a week to explore Osaka but we did not plan for such an itinerary this time round. Till next time!

Spoils for the day from Life Supermarket.

For a list of the hotels/resorts available for booking in Osaka via Agoda.com, click here.

To make a hotel booking at Swissotel Nankai Osaka Hotel, click here.

Links to our Japan Trip 2013

Day 0
Day 1 - Odaiba
Day 1 - Odaiba Trick Art Museum
Day 2 - Tokyo DisneySea
Day 3 - Shibuya
Day 4 - Tokyo Imperial Palace, Yokohama, Asakusa
Day 5 - Hakone
Day 7 - Kyoto
Day 8 - Nara
Souvenirs

How I Planned My Japan Trip Itinerary

Japan Trip Itinerary Planning and Preparations

Read More