We went to Osaka last weekend to pick up Margaret from the airport and to show her around the second largest city in Japan. Ian and I woke up at 6AM on Friday morning and left by 6:30AM in order to make it to the Shinkansen (bullet train) station in Yatsushiro in time. Even though it was that ridiculously early hour, I saw a couple of kids ALREADY WALKING TO SCHOOL. 
I have no idea why they were going to school that early, but OH. MY. GOSH. They take their education soooooooooooo seriously over here!
We hopped on the Shinkansen (picture below) in Yatsushiro. Ian had never been on it before, and the only time I had was the night I was trying to get home, and that was the ONLY thing still running. Having that experience that night and having it last Friday was completely different. I could sit back and relax last Friday while watching the countryside whiz by. The Shinkansen is ridiculously fast. Ian quickly downloaded an app to tell us exactly how fast we were going, and I think the fastest we got up to was 170 MPH!! It was crazy fast! We made it to Kumamoto in about five minutes. That’s about a forty-five minute trip in a car!! We passed through Fukuoka, Kita-Kyushu, Hiroshima, Okayama, and Kobe before rolling into the Osaka train station.
Getting off the train in Osaka, I felt like a country bumpkin in the big city. I forget what it’s like to be in big cities since we live so far out!! People didn’t stare at me as much, and no one was saying konnichiwa (hello) to me as I passed by them! 
(In Yunomae, both of those things are very typical.) Our first stop was the Cannon repair center. Ian broke his camera lens a while ago and wanted to see if it could be fixed. We finally found the right building, but since he bought it on Amazon’s AMERICAN website, the warranty wasn’t valid in Japan. Ian was disappointed, but we grabbed lunch and made our way back to the train station. All of that time on our little exploration of Osaka, we had to carry our luggage. Ian carried the backpack, and I had our duffle slung across my chest with the bag pulled to my front. I seriously felt like I was waddling like a pregnant woman…..which got me to thinking: Is that what it’s like to be pregnant? Ian had all of his weight strapped to his back, so it was much easier for him to maneuver around and walk fast, but I kept saying: “Iaaaaaaaan, slow down! I’m pregnant!” 
His reply was, “I feel like whenever you actually DO get pregnant, you’re going to be one of THOSE pregnant women.” I agreed, and we laughed, saying that Ian would probably be required to make late night ice cream runs for me and reach for the remote when my belly will be too big to allow me to do that.
Kansai Airport is about an hour train ride outside of the city and is on a little man made island in the sea. (I actually heard that the engineers poorly planned the island because it is currently sinking and one day will be under water. Oops……) The only way to get to the airport is by bus or train across a bridge. We got there just in time for Margaret’s plane to land. Ian and I found the international arrivals gate and camped out in front of it, watching the screen for details. We saw constant updates, from “landing” to “collecting baggage,” and when we started to the Delta flight crew trickling through the gates, we stood up and readied ourselves for Margaret’s arrival. Ian was posed, camera in hand while I held our hand made “Welcome to Japan, Margaret!” sign. It was great to see her again! 
We could tell that she was exhausted, so we left the airport as quickly as possible and headed back to Osaka.
Ian had made reservations for us that night at a business hotel. In order to get there, we had to lug our stuff down several city blocks, up and down stairs and escalators until we finally got there. Unless you splurge on a suite, Japanese hotel rooms are VERY economical. There’s not nearly the space that American hotel rooms have. It’s basically a bed, TV, and tiny bathroom. With just Ian and I in our room, I felt like we were nearly tripping over one another! 
Regardless, Ian and I are used to sleeping in crappy hostels while we travel since they are cheaper, so to have an actual comfortable bed with our own private room was kind of like staying at the Ritz!
The next day we were off to Nara, which is a city about an hour outside of Osaka. Nara is famous for its giant Buddha statue in which you can crawl through the nose for luck and its tame deer that roam the park. These are the two things that I wanted to do in Nara: climb through Buddha’s nose and feed/see the Nara deer. Our first stop in Nara was to the park which is a giant monstrosity that takes up acres and acres. There are an estimated 1,500 deer in the park that live and roam freely and are completely used to people. The first deer that we saw was a big, old, and ugly deer, but we were still excited to see one of the famous Nara deer!! The farther we walked into the park, the more deer we saw. At first both of us we very hesitant. I wanted to pet them, but I also remembered that it was a temperamental animal. The deer wanted to approach me to see if I had food, but at the same time wasn’t too fond of being so close to me.
Randomly throughout the park there were carts of rice crackers that people could buy to feed the deer. Ian bought three bundles, one for each of us. It was as if the deer had bionic hearing and could tell the EXACT moment that we had food in our hands. In an instant we were SWARMED with hungry deer, their doe eyes begging for food. Lol. I think Margaret was a little hesitant about the deer, but Ian and I gladly gave the deer all that we had. I seriously felt like Snow White! 
I learned one important lesson that day: keep everything near and deer (ha, ha—it’s a play on words) to you zipped up in your purse. I had our map of the park tucked between my arm and side, and I’ll be darn if one of the deer didn’t come up and snatch it from me!! The whole ordeal was quite comical. I started chasing the deer, but each time I almost reached it, it would skip off a little farther. Ian also tried to help me, but the silly deer had already eaten the whole thing by the time we cornered it! Margaret was watching and laughing the whole time and said that the other Japanese bystanders were doing the same thing. I just hope that that deer had a really difficult poo later! JUSTIFICATION!!!
That day we walked A LOT. We went to the shrine at the edge of the park before crossing back through and making our way down the tourist shop street. Once again, there were tons of deer walking side-by-side tourists, looking for food, and getting shooed from the shops. It was so funny to see this sight!! I was Snow White-ing it with the deer again when one decided that my shirt looked like a tasty snack. It didn’t bite a hole or anything, but it most certainly did leave behind a giant wet spot. Our last stop of the day was the giant Buddha. We walked to the very edge of the park where that temple was only to arrive five minutes after closing time. 
I was sooooooooo sad! That was one of the things that I wanted to do while in Nara!! I guess I will just forever be unlucky since I didn’t get to crawl through Buddha’s nose.
Once we made our way back to Osaka, we met up and had dinner with Joe Hosbach, a fellow Paducahan and friend of Ian’s family who has lived and worked in Osaka for the past twenty-something years. Poor Margaret was exhausted due to jet lag and a whole day of walking, so she went back to the hotel while Ian and I went to a bar with Joe for a little more catching up time.
I think I’ll stop here and save our last day for Part II so that this isn’t too big of a blog post! Keep reading!
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