As threatened- sorry, promised here is a more detailed look at some of the cruise days.
So.
First proper port of the cruise.
Osaka.
Which sounds like the point where we should have had some sort of carefully planned cultural itinerary involving castles, temples, local food and perhaps a respectful amount of historical learning.
We didn’t.
We went to Universal Studios Japan.
Mainly because we could see it from our cabin balcony.
That was the entire reason.
We were standing there looking out from the ship and I said something along the lines of:
“Is that Universal Studios?”
And it was.
So obviously that meant we had to go.
There are probably people who spend six months planning a trip to Japan and booking timed-entry tickets and working out exactly which train carriage to stand in.
We saw it out of a window.
Same result.
Sort of.
2 minutes later, tickets booked online via the excellent attraction booking site Kloot (not a paid or sponsored advert, its a genuinely great site)
And to be fair, it was brilliant.
There was something a bit mad about arriving in Osaka on a cruise ship and then, not particularly long afterwards, finding yourself wandering around Universal Studios surrounded by Mario characters.
But then again this entire holiday had already started developing a bit of a “well, we’re here now” approach to planning.
Which I quite like.
You can over-plan these things.
Sometimes you just need to look out of a balcony and go:
“Yeah. Let’s go there.”
So we did.
Universal Studios Japan was excellent, and Mrs Haphazard convinced me to have a go on a few rides that were very much out of my comfort zone. See TikTok. Nintendo World was obviously brilliant.
Even if you aren’t completely obsessed with Nintendo, walking through that entrance and suddenly being inside what basically looks like a Mario game is impressive.
Anyway.
That was day one.
Culture achieved: approximately zero.
Fun achieved: considerable.
So on day two we thought we should probably behave ourselves and see something old.
Very old.
Off we went to Nara.
We headed out through the countryside, which was already a nice change from the big-city Japan we’d mostly seen so far.
And arrived at Todai-ji Temple.
Which is enormous.
I know that’s not particularly sophisticated travel writing, but honestly sometimes “bloody hell, that’s big” is the correct response.
Todai-ji dates back to the 8th century and houses the Great Buddha, or Daibutsu.
You walk into this massive wooden building ( I believe the biggest wooden building in the world) and then there it is.
Huge bronze Buddha.
Just sitting there.
Watching everyone wander around taking photos and whispering.
It’s one of those places where even fairly noisy groups suddenly go quiet.
I stood there looking up at it thinking:
Yep.
That is definitely a Great Buddha.
No false advertising there.
Then after Todai-ji we headed into Nara Park.
And this is where the trip took another unexpected turn.
Because Nara Park is famous for its deer.
Sacred Sika deer.
They roam around freely.
They’re meant to be friendly.
And famously, some of them will bow to you.
Very Japanese.
Very polite.
You bow.
Deer bows.
You give deer a little cracker.
Lovely.
That is the brochure version.
The actual version is that the deer have clearly spent generations developing a highly organised system of extortion.
They know where the deer-crack(er) dealers sellers are.
They hang around them.
Not casually.
They are waiting.
Watching.
As soon as somebody buys a packet, they know.
You can almost see them nudging each other.
“Dave. Tourist. Crackers. Move.”
And suddenly you’ve got deer coming at you from all directions.
Apparently the deal is supposed to be that you bow and then the deer bows back.
Some of them do.
Very charming.
Very civilised.
Others clearly consider the whole bowing thing an unnecessary administrative step.
They just want the crack(er).
Immediately.
And if you don’t distribute them quickly enough, they start taking matters into their own hooves.
Or teeth.
Because one bit me on the bum.
Yep.
Sacred Japanese deer.
Bit me on the arse.
I don’t think that was mentioned in the excursion description.
It wasn’t exactly an aggressive attack.
More of a firm reminder that I was currently holding food that legally belonged to the deer.
But it definitely made me jump.
Mrs Haphazard obviously thought this was hilarious.
Which it was.
Eventually.
At the time I was mainly wondering whether there was a Japanese phrase for:
“Excuse me, your sacred animal has just bitten my backside.”
What makes it even funnier is the way they hang around the cracker sellers.
They genuinely look like they’re running the whole operation.
The humans think they are selling the crackers.
They’re not.
They work for the deer.
Somewhere behind the trees there is probably a massive stag wearing sunglasses counting the day’s takings.
So after surviving the Nara Deer Mafia, we carried on through the park towards Kasuga-taisha Shrine.
And suddenly everything went peaceful again.
Which is something Japan seems very good at.
One minute you are being shaken down for biscuits by wildlife.
Then
Stone lanterns everywhere. Forest. Torii gates. That slightly strange feeling you get in Japan where somewhere can be full of people and still somehow feel peaceful.
Kasuga-taisha is a Shinto shrine, and by this point I’d started becoming increasingly fascinated by Shinto.
Now, I should probably state quite clearly that my understanding of Shinto is still somewhere around the enthusiastic tourist with a few intoductory books, so what follows is almost certainly both simplistic and lazy.
But in my head I’ve started relating Shinto to The Force in Star Wars.
Hear me out.
Not literally.
I’m not suggesting Japanese priests are secretly wandering around moving rocks with their minds.
( Although Kantanas / Lightsabres coincidence? I think not 🙂 )
Although that would be brilliant.
It’s more the idea of something spiritual being present throughout the world around us, in places, mountains, trees, rivers, animals and nature.
Shinto centres around kami, which can be connected with natural forces, particular places, ancestors and all sorts of things within the world around us.
And unlike most of the religions I’m more familiar with, there isn’t one central founder, one single sacred book laying down all the rules, or a huge fixed list of things everyone has to believe.
Which, if I’m being slightly flippant about something obviously far more complicated than this…
sounds alright to me.
Respect nature.
Respect the places around you.
Try not to be a dick.
There are worse foundations for looking at the world.
And yes, I know describing an ancient Japanese religion as “a bit like The Force” is probably one of the most spectacularly lazy bits of cultural interpretation ever committed to a travel blog.
But it’s my travel blog.
And that’s genuinely the little hook my brain found to help me understand it.
So walking through the forest towards Kasuga-taisha, surrounded by hundreds of ancient stone lanterns, I found myself thinking about Shinto rather more seriously than I’d expected to on this trip.
Which was quite a change from twenty minutes earlier when I’d been bitten on the arse by a deer.
After that we headed to Naramachi, the old merchant district.
Lots of traditional wooden buildings, narrow streets, little shops and old houses.
The sort of area where the best thing you can really do is wander about.
Which suits me because wandering about is one of my main holiday skills.
I am very good at walking somewhere without knowing why.
Occasionally it even results in seeing something interesting.
And then eventually it was back to the boat, erm, sorry, ship.
So our first proper cruise stop had been quite productive really.
We’d gone to Universal Studios purely because we could see it. Walked around Nintendo World.(where I obviously bought more Nintendo Merch than strictly necessary)
Visited an 8th-century Buddhist temple.
Seen a gigantic bronze Buddha.
Visited one of Japan’s most famous Shinto shrines.
Wandered through historic Nara.
Fed sacred deer.
And been physically assaulted by one of them.
Well.
Bitten on the bum. (And to show no hard feelings a got a little fluffy deer toy)
Japan continued to be excellent.
And strange.
Which, to be honest, was exactly what I was hoping for.
Be First to Comment