Nara (奈良市)

Well, it's time to try and do something really touristy. Like trying to visit Nara. Upon arrival, we knew we wanted to take a bus to the park (where else would you go) and I asked my travel companion if they could figure out which bus we should take. Being well trained by now, their gaze immediately fell upon the map describing which bus goes to which platform, trying to decipher things. Till I slowly dragged their eyes to the giant banner seen above. Nara is not doing half measures.

And neither are the tourists. Or the deer. The two seem to come as a package though, as the tourists appear to be a vital part of the food chain. The deer food sales people bring the food. The tourists buy it and dispense it. And the deer it eat.

And if you don't, well then the deer give you a reminder. By eating the flower pattern dress of one of my travel companions. Twice!

Having witnessed this, Washinoko decided that Deer time was to be well supervised, and to have large personal space bubbles. He had no zero interest in finding out how much he might look like deer food.

Otherwise, Nara was mostly just a calm place. The deer kept on slowing down the traffic. The rolling surrounding hills reminded me a bit of Europe. And the dragon flies keep teasing me, testing to see if I know what the business end of my camera is.

Nara also had a Taito station immediately visible from the train station. And given I hadn't managed to go playing after the first night, I went in! To discover that they only had the carnival claw machines and no second level. This needed fixing.

So I finally looked up Taito station in Osaka, and was luckily greeted with a much bigger building, and with some real games inside. The only thing I was missing was wired headphones to properly bop with.

After that, having found myself by the Dotonbori river again, I enjoyed some more of the lights before finding the same Ramen shop chain I got my last killer Ramen at. With a queue. And while a queue is generally a good sign of a restaurant, I decided I could just head back to Umeda instead of having to wait there.

So I waited in a queue in Umeda instead ... I'm going to tell myself that it was a smaller queue. And the better restaurant. And I will hear nothing to the contrary.

It's actually cute that if you order a half boiled egg, you get it instantly. In its shell. Giving you something to do while you wait for the Ramen. I also ordered full strength garlic. And they meant it. I could smell my Ramen before they opened the curtain to give it to me. And I have no regrets.