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| Deer at Nara Park |
Nara Park actually has deer roaming around freely everywhere! And it's just a few minutes from the centre of the town. Amazing!
Weekend #8 in Japan was another full one, the first of two three-day weekends in a row. Thank you Japan!
On Thursday night we saw a jazz pianist from Tokyo at a bar in Wakayama city, playing originals and covers. It was good to see live music locally. Wakayama-shi is a city of 400,000 about 15 kilometres from where I live. I think I've been too quick to dismiss Wakayama city as boring. When the bright lights of Osaka are calling an hour or two north, Wakayama seems rather quiet and dull, but there's probably more to it than I've realised.
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| Heading home after seeing a Jazz pianist in Wakayama-shi |
On Friday there was a cultural festival at my Junior High school, with music performances by students in the morning, and by professional Taiko drummers in the afternoon. I didn't realise Taiko was so... cool. The band members were young guys in their twenties, the drumming part is actually quite athletic, and the music was a lot more modern than I expected. Here's a short video from the day:
Friday night was fun too, spending the evening with some older members of the local community who speak English well and meet regularly to converse in English.
Saturday was another big day, spent in Kishiwada for their massive danjiri festival. The danjiri festival is a cart-pulling festival, where a big group of people pull carts shaped as shrines or temples through the streets really fast. It's quite hard to explain! This
blog entry explains it well.
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Osaka and surrounding JETs dressed in Happi coats at the Kishiwada Danjiri Festival
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Big crowds get ready to pull and push the danjiri
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| A danjiri |
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Nice hairstyles at the Kishiwada Danjiri Festival
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| A danjiri |
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| A less traditional danjiri than most |
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| Running after the danjiri |
The danjiri is a big spectacle and worth going too, but it does get a bit repetitive after a while! Luckily there's lots of yummy festival food to try!
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| Festival food |
On Sunday we drove to Nara, which I didn't know much about beyond that it's Japanese city with a lot of traditional temples and architecture, like Kyoto, but on a smaller scale. I like Nara! It's a compact little place, easy to navigate, and has some great features, like the deer that roam free around Nara Park.
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| Deer at Nara Park |
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| Deer at Nara Park |
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| More deer |
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| Nara mascot |
If you're heading to Nara, I'd highly recommend staying at the
Guesthouse Nara Komachi. It's cheap for Japan and is lovely and new and comfortable.
Unfortunately while in Nara we had to make a trip to the hospital for an injured foot. This was quite a daunting task with such limited Japanese language skills, but it turned out fine. The man we spoke to at the general hospital didn't just direct us to the hospital nearby we needed to go to, he actually hopped in my car and came to the other hospital down the road with us, explained the situation, then walked back to his hospital. Despite being a public holiday, there was an English speaking doctor on staff, the wait was short, and the cost was very reasonable. Thank you Japan!
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