#'s 3 and 4 Kyoto to Osaka, Then Home

My final entry in my travel blog is being done from home. I made it back, and I am fighting off jet lag while trying to type this.

Why am I writing this from home? Well, I will tell you. If you are ever in Osaka, Japan do not stay at the New Hankyu Hotel. Despite being in the most technologically advanced society in the world, they do not have internet access in their hotel rooms. Also, their rooms are small and their breakfast buffet was below average, though they were the only I ate at that offered octopus balls.



Before we left Kyoto, city of temples, we had to stop at one more, Kiyomizu Temple. This Buddhist temple is on a forested hillside just outside of Kyoto. It is probably the most visited temple in Kyoto, and apparently it was featured in several scenes in The Last Samurai, though walking through it did not bring back any memories from the film.


Below is the golden Buddha statue. It is not particularly large, but this temple is probably the first one built in Kyoto, dating from around the 8th century.
This temple is also famous for its spring. The flowing spring water is divided up into 3 streams. The 3 three streams claim to offer you peace, longevity, or wisdom, depending on which one you drink from. The modern Japanese have even added an infrared sanitizing machine to purify the communal dippers that people drink from.
Since this is the most visited temple in the city, school groups are everywhere. If you are a foreigner be prepared to be stopped by small groups of Japanese students who want to talk to you in English. Apparently, this has been a popular assignment in Japanese schools for over 20 years. Groups of students compete to see how many English speakers they can interview. Below is the second group of students who stopped me. The first group took my picture and gave me a postcard from their school so I can write to them. Sounds like a great class assignment to me.

After lunch at a Japanese Italian restaurant, we took an hour and a half bus ride to Osaka. And of course, we visited the local castle, appropriately named Osaka Castle. The castle, which survived WW II bombing, is a reconstruction because the Japanese destroyed it themselves as they wrestled for control of the strategic area of Osaka in the 1600's and 1800's.

As always, these castles offer great panoramic views of their home city because they usually sit in the center of the town. Osaka is Japan's third largest city, only Tokyo and Yokohama are larger, but since Yokohama is a suburb of Tokyo, Osaka is really Japan's "second city."


In the one of its downtown areas, Osaka has an 1.5 mile outdoor shopping mall. Here is one of those classic images from a Japanese city, the seven story wall of electronic advertisements.

After walking and walking that night, we awoke and drove to Kansai international airport, which sits on a manmade island in Osaka's bay. It was a very impressive engineering feat, but a necessary one since Japan is a very crowded place with precious little room for new construction.

I guess I need to give a final reflection here at the end of my blog. I know I am a very lucky person to be able to take this trip. The Freeman Foundation, Columbia University, and The National Consortium for Teaching about Asia were more than generous in providing the funding and organization. Notre Dame High School was very accomodating in letting me miss a week of school for this once in a lifetime experience. Finally, I could not have done any of this without my loving and patient wife, Jennifer, who looked after house and children while I was gone.

The two cultures I visited were both strange and familiar. Human beings are human beings and react to each other in very predictable ways, and yet, I knew I was very far from home.

To me, China felt like the vast sprawling country it is. The people there reminded me alot of Americans. They can be agressive and driven, especially when they are trying to convince you to buy something. Many times, normal converstations between people on the street seemed like shouting matches as two people barked at each other in Mandarin. Yet, the Chinese could also be humble and accomodating. I got the sense they all enjoyed life and felt great pride in their country and their ancient culture.

As noted befoe, Japan was completely different. Their culture of honor and manners was pervasive. I certainly felt more at home in Japan because its standard of living is similar to America, yet their people are far different. The swagger and confidence that many American possess seems to be replaced with propriety and focus in the Japanese. It was quite evident of thier cultural pride as well. In both countries, the historical places we visited were jam packed with native.

These are just some jet lagged impressions.

I am sure I will write more about this later.

Chuck Newel
Chattanooga, TN
10/26/08