Nara, Kobe, and Takatsuki

Todaiji, A huge temple, a huge Buddha. From when Japan was quite a cosmopolitan country back there in the 8th century or so. You walk around the giant buddha. And the giant lotus leaves depict the infinite world and infinite buddhas on the infinite worlds. This is all symbolically represented by one huge giant Buddha, in the center. Its symbolic. Its Nara.

circles, circles. Circles animate things. Like a daibutsu, or like Studio Ghibli's animation. Or like pottery on a potters wheel.

tsuki, suki? (Do you like the moon?)

At this point I had eaten far too much mochi and started to have something of an allergic reaction to all the sugar- darn, hatsugashii.

Kobe is a beautiful city, Chinese dancing is also quite interesting.
Daikon mochi, luke warm and limpid, maybe even cold is not so delicious. Goma dango, hot with sesemi seeds wrapped in a little ball is quite delicious. Especially to the sound of Chinese music and acrobats.
From the "sweets harbour" kobe is an interesting array of colored lights.

Takatsuki is probably a place that not very many tourists go. Which is sad, because it is great fun. Tenjin was a guy who was exiled and then he made natural disasters so today he is honored at a large shrine ontop of a hill. The whole distance from the station to the shrine is lined with yatai shop stalls selling all kinds of luscious "fair food" worthy of someplace in middle america I suppose. asitgot dark the whole place filled up with "yankiis" or hoodlums, which was also very interesting, and everyone listening to Okinawa style music, Taiko drumming, and a really weird Enka singer who nobody could decide was a man or a woman. Oh Takatsuki, I love your style. I ate a full squid on a stick, about foot long and dripping in teriyaki style sauce. it was such a warm evening too. I'll miss the "french dogs" and spicy chicken hawked at me by very jovial and aggressive vendors...

The next day as I walked through a field drinking tomato juice I was stopped by a furooshya (a homeless man) on a bycycle who wanted to practice english. Quite a guy, he wanted me to go only to the less known sights of Kyoto and really love Japan!