Today we planned a day-trip to Nara, famous for its free-roaming deer, and then travel to Hiroshima in the evening, so we had a full day the next day. We woke up nice and early, and got ourselves over to Nara in a good hour or so. It was sunny, warm, and we felt well rested (dunno actually, just making that up). We grabbed some pastries for breakfast and headed towards Nara Park. When Julie is browsing in random shops, one of my favourite past times is to open Google Maps and type ‘record stores’ and figure out how I can coerce Julie into them. The nearest one I found was called B-Sells. That name didn’t mean a lot to us until we read it was a Beatles shop (!). We got ourselves over there quick sharp to find the most amazing store; walls full of records; about 20 copies of each album, of varying rarity. There were hundreds of singles, some official, some Japanese promo, some bootleg. There was also a load of memorabilia I’d never seen before. It was a joyous shop, and the owner was such a nice chap; he was star-struck enough that we were from England. I didn’t dare tell him I was the Sheffield Beatles Project (you have reached the end of the free content of this blog. Please buy a ticket for our December 2020 concert to continue reading.. *fades writing away behind an imaginary paywall* https://www.gigantic.com/the-sheffield-beatles-project-the-blue-album-tickets).
Psyche! Got ‘eem! (old man, old memes)
Before going to the park, we dropped our bags at the Tourist centre, where they did free mini-classes for various Japanese practises. We took the calligraphy class and learnt how to write our names in Kanji; please ignore the fact that I’m holding mine upside down. It’s actually Julie’s fault, I had expected her to take the photo upside down, but for some reason she decided to make me look like an idiot.
Ok, fuck all that shit, give me some deers! Ok, ok, fine, give me some deer. Multiple deer. Upon climbing the stairs to the park, we were met with a huge Pagoda, and as luck would have it, a cute lil’ deer sat in its shadow. From there we wandered further in, and bought some crackers specifically for the deer (which is a shame as they smelled amazing). It was here that we were surrounded by the plentiful deer, all wandering up to us in the hope we might feed them. Which we did, obvs. The deer here have learnt to bow in order to get food. I mean; sure, there’s probably a boring explanation – deer would bow their heads to get food from the ground and over time, I imagine people would feed by hand, and they would associate that head movement with food. Pavlov’s Deer, or something. Alas, it was very cool to see, and squeeeeeeeeee, it was cute. We grabbed ourselves an ice cream each (I had a green tea ice cream, yum) and then the deer took a huge interest, headbutting our legs and having zero knowledge of the etiquette of personal space. They got a little bit aggressive, in a “alright mate, it’s just a kick-about!” kind of way, but it was all good-natured. I should have worn my shinnies. One deer even repeatedly stuck its head in Julie’s bag, almost bagging themselves our £700 bullet train tickets. That would have been HILARIOUS, wouldn’t it? LOLing our way into further debt. Anyway, it was time for another Japanese garden would you believe, so give your eyes a break from my words, and take a look at these animals.
I can only apologise that we didn’t take more deer pictures.
We moved onto a lovely little Japanese Garden. Admittedly it wasn’t really different to any of the others, but when they look and smell so good, I’m happy living this Groundhog day. We did however get to witness a man taking photos of his girlfriend; she was stood by the lake and she kept coming back to him and checking his photography skills, of which he apparently had none, and would go back and re-do each pose. Sometimes, I wonder if they’re still there now. We had a stroll around the water and up into some magical colours.
Alright, that’s enough day time for us! Let’s get to the night bit. We headed back to Nara and a pretty long journey over to Hiroshima, with multiple transfers. So yeah, that all happened, and we arrived at our hotel in Hiroshima. We got to our room, made tea from the weirdest little tea-bags, then Julie made the error of lying down on the bed.
Zzzzzz…. that’s it. The night is done. And dusted.
But NO! In most situations, the blog would finish here, but I decided to forcefully shake Julie awake, and Google some bars and food establishments. I found a decent rock bar that I had my heart set on until I decided to check one more place. A bar simply called ‘Macs’. It boasted a hipster vibe, run by staff with an encyclopedic knowledge of music. A hi-fi was set up behind the bar, all you had to do was request a song. Perfect, I thought, a sophisticated night of drinking whilst listening to John Coltrane, stroking our chins, and discussing the lovely low-end that protruded from these particular speakers. Imagine our surprise then, as we jumped out of the lift on the 3rd floor of this seemingly disused building, hearing King of Leon’s perpetually boring Use Somebody. I was disgusted. This wasn’t music that I liked. Nothing centred around me, and I did not like it; not one bit. But then he played Leonard Cohen, so it’s fine. Forgiven. Julie and I stationed ourselves at the bar, and requested the likes of Talking Heads, Kate Bush, Radiohead, Tom Waits, et al, whilst sipping on Hiroshima’s finest sake and red wine. In-between all our (ok, my) choices, a young lad at the other end of the bar kept requesting Oasis song after Oasis song, and eventually he came over and we got chatting. A Geordie chap, holidaying alone whilst his girlfriend was back home, jealous of all the photos he kept sending. He was trying to start a career in music, currently making money his money from covers bands, and to be fair, his singing was rather impressive, as evidenced by a rousing rendition of Under Pressure during a short “ok, not Oasis this time” break. He told us that he was doing a university course at the moment, composing music for film. I asked him what his favourite ever OST was and he said, in all seriousness, straight faced, full on eye-contact; Michael Bay’s Transformers. Right. We’re actually Facebook friends so there’s a chance he’ll read this so – Hi Tom! Sorry about all those words above. Actually, we’ll never meet again; listen to some Morricone, Badalamenti, anything! and then apologise to me, immediately. Get on your knees and say sorry. SAY IT.
We left the bar about 11.30pm feeling rather tipsy and decided it’d be a most excellent time to go see the A-dome. Partaaaaaaaaaay! It was quite surreal seeing it in the darkness; the city reflecting in the river beside us, with the dome standing tall above us, preserved in it’s dereliction (apparently that’s a word, and I’m delighted). It was a sobering sight, literally and figuratively, which is also an exact quote that I self-congratularily said to Julie that very night. On the short walk home, we dove into a shop having not eaten since 1957 or something, and Julie grabbed herself a chocolate sandwich. Because. We then proceeded to purchase our goods, I said ‘konichiwa’ instead of thank you, and then we both tried to walk into a wall instead of the door. There’s a warrant out for our arrest in west Japan, probably. Damn those 2 small wines!
15 days in Japan. 