Japan Spinout Part 2

Now have got my bearings and can understand everything that is said to me NOT !! It's time to do some site seeing. Now in this land of technology thousands of people still ride there good old trusty bicycles or as we like to call them here in Australia pushies. So I was lent one by some very nice people and it became one of my major forms of transport for the next 3 weeks. Next up more train rides exploring many places and seeing some pretty unbelievable stuff . We visited many Temples wow this place has got so many after awhile you start dreaming about them . We cruised into Kyoto on one of the kool fast trains , now being a gardener and have built Japanese style gardens in my time . I was very keen to check out the real thing so went to Nijo Castle and it was awesome ! This 1626 {yeah it still blows me away how old some of these places are} and the gardens are unreal they have heaps of gardeners working there all the time.

Another real kool thing about this castle is the creaking timber floors , they were made like this so no one could sneak in and kill the Shogun . Now there are many castles in Japan but we only had a look at a few and they were Nijo Castle, Himeji Castle { man this place is huge}, Nagahama Castle. There is this place called Nara and it has this park were Deer rome free and try to scab food of anyone {kinda like the Dingoes on Frazier Island here in Australia}and this park is like a Temple them park . I told you this country is out there . Now there is one Temple in particular that total blew my mind, Todai-ji Temple is the largest wooden structure in the world and get this it is 5000 yrs old is 5 stories high and houses a giant gold Buddha YEEHAH! Now one of the funniest things about Japan is all the crap souvenir shops , not for foreign Tourists but Japanese and yes just like every where else all the crap is made in China ?

So if Nara wasn't enough of a spinout it was back on a train and into Osaka to buy some Magic Mushies. So now we are in Osaka and it is like being in a totally different land instead of Deer there are cars , bikes and people . Then there is the shops what can I say the shops are stacked on top of each other layer apon layer apon layer. There is so much going on its kinda like a scene from Blade Runner { more so when you have had Magic Mushies }
Oh yeah I just remembered I haven't told you about Pachinko , now there are just about as many Pachinko Parlours as there are vending machines Pachinko is Japans equivalent to Poker machines and are every where e.g.when riding on a train looking out at the rice paddies and countryside in the middle of nowhere is a bloody Pachinko Parlour.