Kansai

We took the high-speed train to Shanghai Pudong Airport straight after work on Friday. Our flight was at six on Saturday morning. I had never caught such an early flight and had no idea what I was doing, so I booked a hotel miles from the airport. After working out the logistics, we thought, fine, we might as well spend the night at the airport.

Had I known how miserable an overnight stay at Pudong would be, I would have chosen a few hours lying down in a hotel over sitting on a hard bench until dawn.

I even brought two bottles of alcohol to help me “fall asleep quickly.” In the end they only made me sleepier, and the night that little bit harder to endure.

1. Working hard, after hours
2. You take my picture, I’ll take yours!
3. Overtime, with a brave little smile
4. Peachy-Butt Airlines
5. The next morning’s sun
6. An ugly little green plane

🛫 ——> 🛬

Attempt number two at sleeping: failed.

I am a light sleeper to begin with. Between the roar of the engines and the vibrations, sleep was impossible, so I could only stare out the window. S and K slept soundly. Ah, to be young and fall asleep the moment your head drops.

1. And we’re off! 🛫
2. Above the clouds, though not the Guizhou kind that hosts iCloud
3. Above the clouds, take two
4. Little islands
5. Shikoku, take one
6. Shikoku, take two
7. Landing at Kansai International Airport
8. Haruka

Thanks to Japan’s positively backward rule that hotels will not let you check in until 3 p.m., the three of us began wandering Kyoto.

The mind had left the building. The body kept wandering.

1. A very improvised lunch
2. A shrine in the city center
3. Inabadō (Byōdō-ji), the “cat shrine”
4. A tiny ⛩️ in the roadside grass
5. Late cherry blossoms down a quiet alley
6. The Kamo River, take one
7. The Kamo River, take two
8. At last, sleep
9. Skewers. So good.

For a fun, hands-on Kansai trip, Nara is an essential stop: a chance to get close to nature.

The whole city is filled with a distinctive scent of nature: deer poop.

Our strategy was maximum freeloading. Not a single packet of deer crackers: straight in for the petting.

1. Outside Kintetsu Nara Station
2. Nikon: for sharper bird shots
3. Roadside 🦌, take one
4. Roadside 🦌, take two
5. An influencer deer
6. A bowing little 🦌
7. Abundant Ebon Deer
8. Good fortune!
9. Another influencer deer
10. Tōdai-ji
11. Kōmokuten

Leave Tōdai-ji and head uphill to the southeast, and you will reach Mount Wakakusa.

The Mount Wakakusa of Xiaohongshu fame is a very small area: just one west-facing slope. There was almost nowhere to sit because it was covered in deer poop. Everyone around us was speaking Chinese; we could have been back home.

So we chose a less social-media-famous route: climb to the actual summit of Mount Wakakusa and look out over all of Nara.

1. A quiet path uphill
2. A grass-eating 🦌
3. Halfway up
4. Straight out of a romance drama
5. Made it to the top!
6. The photo of a lifetime
7. A hillside full of 🦌
8. Rice doesn’t come cheap in Nara

We had no particular plans for the last day, so we declared it shopping day.

Good times always fly by. As if reluctant to let us leave, our flight made a special effort to be four hours late.

1. Mickey D’s near Takashimaya
2. Nintendo KYOTO
3. A little shopping on someone else’s behalf
4. The shopping haul
5. Back on the Haruka, off to the airport
6. Scenery along the way
7. One last look at Japan