Osaka Fireworks and Historic Nara (8/7/10 & 8/8/10)

Last weekend we watched some really impressive fireworks in Umeda and took a trip to the historic prefecture of Nara (which had an area that was full of wild deer). It was a lot of walking around (about 20,000 steps each day, according to my Pokéwalker) but I thoroughly enjoyed both days.


August 7th, 2010: Our original plan to watch the fireworks was to see if we could stay at the Umeda Sky Building and watch from the upper floors (and possibly the observation deck). When we got up to the floor with the ticket counter, however, we learned that the Sky Building closed at 6:30PM (fireworks started at 7:50PM) and that they did sell special tickets for watching fireworks from the top. Unfortunately, these special tickets were sold out weeks ago, so we had no chance to follow through with our plan.

For Plan B, we walked to the river where the fireworks were to be launched from and looked for an adequate seat. They were selling tickets for a reserved seating area that was close to the river and had folding chairs but it was ¥5000 per person! Instead, we found a cement slope at the base of a raised area and behind a stretch of grass that had enough room for us to hang out. We sat there for a while playing our portable gaming devices until it got dark, and there were many others playing their DS systems.

The fireworks themselves were superb. There were many different types and colors, and even some shapes like smiley faces and fish. One thing that I had never seen before were fireworks that went off close to the ground. These explosions were coupled with the ones in the sky but appeared only as semicircles on the ground. Lots of people around us would call out the names of the shaped fireworks and also applauded heavily after grand cascades of explosions. After the show, we walked back to the convenience store we passed on the way to the Sky Building and got jumbo franks on sticks for dinner.

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August 8th, 2010: One of the Japanese students that Sarah and Liz are working with lives in Nara and offered to take us all (in two groups) on a tour of the city. Since that group I was with was in Umeda on Saturday we went to Nara on Sunday. Shunsuke, our student guide, picked us up at the Toyonaka campus and drove us to Nara early in the morning (the whole drive took about an hour and a half), with a breakfast break at a rest stop halfway there. The rest stop has a few food places inside, but we all ate at a danish shop called the Little Mermaid. I got a hot dog with onions, a cheesecake-filled ball (pretty much just a big Munchkin), and a chocolate-covered, custard-filled twist. After eating, we traveled the rest of the way to Nara.

Our first stop in Nara was the Isuien Garden, a tranquil area with two ponds, some traditional Japanese houses, and lots of trees and other plant life. There were a lot of pond skaters on the surface of the water, and even a couple koi (or carp) in the ponds. The paths and bridges over the ponds and streams were all made out of stone, which made the entire area seem very natural and peaceful. We also visited the small museum next to the garden which housed mostly historic decorated mirrors and ceramics. From the garden we walked back to the main street, through an underground passage (to prevent pedestrians from crossing the busy street), and to a sidewalk next to a large park. This area was home to a bunch of wild deer that were accustomed to people giving them attention. There were several vendors selling disposable cameras and crackers for deer food. The deer were pretty aggressive when they sensed someone with food, and signs were posted warning visitors of potential harm that deers may cause. We continued out trip by walking for a bit down the street to an area with some temples and pagodas, with deer all along the way.

The main temple in this area is called Kōfuku-ji, and there are many, smaller buildings in the area. Although we didn't go inside the main temple, we pays to view the small national treasure museum nearby and walked around to see the other pieces of architecture. We stopped to get some shaved ice soon after we arrived, and we saw many places that we've become used to from visiting the temples in Kyoto, such as hand-washing stations, hanging wish/fortune tags, and small shrines for praying. Our guide lead us around this area for a bit and then down a few streets with deer and various vendors.

Our next stop was to the famous Tōdai-ji, which houses a huge Buddha statue as well as some smaller statues. Being a popular tourist sight, the temple attracts many visitors and it was no exception when we were there. Some people stopped to burn incense at the beginning of the path leading to the temple and others took photos in front of the building. One interesting fact that we learned from Shunsuke was that the path leading up to the temple was constructed with five different types of stone, representing Buddha's journey to Japan.

From Tōdai-ji we sought a place to eat lunch and then drove to our final destination, Heijō Palace. The entire palace area is massive and includes a gate, a large courtyard, and some small museum rooms that depict the excavation and restoration of the palace. It didn't take as long as I thought to walk from the entrance to the palace, but it looked like it would take forever (especially in the blazing sun). The palace itself houses some informational panels about excavation and restoration, and also has a small throne area in the middle.

Altogether it was a very full weekend and I'm glad that we were able to see one of the several summer fireworks shows while we are here and that we had the opportunity to visit Nara, since we might not have been able to given its distance from where we live. The other places we have in mind for weekend trips are Kobe, which is in the opposite direction of Nara from us, and obviously Tokyo. I'm not sure if we have any upcoming plans to go to these places, but there will be blog posts when we do go!

(Check out all the photos from this weekend here, here, and here!)