NARA

Johney and Mary went to the coast for a few days and on Wednesday Triin and left Osaka on our rusty bikes - we slept in the hills just East of town overlooking the huge twinkling grid of the city. We camped out on the balcony of an old peoples home and the window in the bathroom was slightly open so I slipped into the warm tub at 11pm and soaked for a bit before drying off in the balmy night with my t-shirt. I was surprised no one discovered us - the next morning we cycled down hill and got lost and found ourselves in Nara - the problem is cities just mould into each-other so it is hard telling where you are and where the next city is because when you ask "Where is Nara please!" many people say "This IS Nara!" when you are 10 miles form the center! Anyhow, we pulled into town on a lovely sunny evening after a rainy morning on the bikes. We found a little shopping street and made some coin then eat and looked at some of the sites in the dark - the pagodas are magically lit-up as were the imperial ponds and other beauty spots. We found a nice tree in the gardens with not too many deer about us and I was surprised how well I slept. We woke in the misty edge of dawn as the deer screeched and yakked around us and I practiced some of my Chinese trumpet to keep them company. We went to see the GIANT BUDDHA in the biggest wooden structure in the world, which is a 19th century replica of an even bigger earlier wooden temple that burnt down. It was awesome with a huge dark Buddha sitting and waving his hands. I did a nice picture but unfortunately he does not look so vast on a sheet of A4! I`ll have to paint some tiny airplanes flying around his knees! We had a nice picnic and heard many cries of "SEEEGOOOOIII!" (amazing) by japanese school groups spotting my tall bike and monster costume - often as young as 4 or 5 years old and all in their matching uniforms except the girls wear red hats and the boys are in yellow hats. Extremely cute! We played some more music trying to milk Japan as best we can for the long journey through poor countries next. We had packed up and were heading for a cafe to drink a cuppa coffee over a game of Chinese Chess (Triin beat me this morning!!! HOW!!!). A guy who had been watching us earlier told us in shaky English that he was a hairdresser and invited us to have our hair put in order for free. I needed my moustache cutting out of my mouth and Triin had been talking about having her hair cut for a couple of weeks so we went to his jazzy salon and tried to ignore our terrible new CD which he proudly put on his stereo - oh dear!!! Some of it is OK but it is good and natural that we are dissatisfied - otherwise we would just have to give up playing music! He did a very smart job and pretty quick with hair shampooing and washing and drying and even a back massage! I looked on the menu, which said it would have cost $50 each! So I look quite presentable - except for my clothes! Hope a tailor sees one of our street shows. Well, actually I am looking ok for clothes because I often wear my Gagaping - famous Japanese cartoon monster - costume to keep warm. Triin put on her big yellow Chinese anorack and we cycled for 6 hours solid to get to Kyoto from Nara. A lot of the journey was through windy back streets of the eternal city. In the tourist guides it says that Tokyo, Nara, Kyoto and Kamagawa were all the capital of Japan at one time or another - well, although they are as far as 400km apart they are pretty much continually joined by housing so you could say they are still the capital. I stopped at a manual workers store to buy some construction slippers - the wrestling boots with detached toes that workers in Japan wear! We finally arrived in Koyoto and played a little more music and were kicked off our favorite spot for the third time this week by very polite policemen. I guess it is not our favorite spot any more - pity though. Tomorrow we go to Nagoya for the street festival but tonight we stay with our good friend Naho who is so lovely!!! All the best
love jimmy