OK, The first thing I want to say is that I agree that the camera thing is getting quite ridiculous. Due to shipping problems, I've abandoned my first attempt and have gone a more direct route and bought one through Egghead online. Dave is going to ship it to me when he gets it.
Regardless of the fact that I ***still*** don't have the camera that I've been holding most of my serious sightseeing back for, I got out of the city this weekend. It did take some motivation, though. Dave was in town, on the way back to Austin from a business trip. It was lots of fun, since he and his boss (Don, travelling with him) were able to get me out to the adjacent area of Nara. In Nara is the "Great Budda", which is one of the largest bronze images in the world, at about 60' tall. It's housed in the Todai-Ji Temple, the largest wooden structure in the world (trust me, it's big). I'll have to get pictures later and post them I guess (yeah, I know...promises, promises). There were also hundreds of the most tame deer I've ever seen. They were like dogs. There were street vendors selling crackers to feed the deer, and it was hilarious watching three or four deer chase someone with crackers as they tried to get away. They were almost as bad as pidgeons (much bigger though). One of the deer would actually rub its head up and down Don's leg like a dog wanting to be petted.
What else?...I found a pet store in one of the walking malls close to the hotel...definitely proof that I'm not in Kansas any more. They had most of the things you'd see in the U.S., and then some. Dogs and cats cost from about $1,500 to $2,500. They had lots of monkeys of several varieties, great big beetles (2" long +/-), owls, pigs, chickens, large (20") turtles, large (15") lizards, and more. There was also an odd looking cat-thing there that wouldn't at all surprise me if it's an endangered species.
They've got some pretty interesting arcade games here. There are many that involve not only coordination, but rhythm as well. In "Samba de Amigo", you shake maraccas in time, and correctly up, down, or at waist-level, with graphic effects that accompany music. It's as simple in concept as it sounds, but a lot of fun. Another one involves jumping around in time to music that plays, and according to visual cues that indicate what you should do. They even had "Typing in the House of the Dead", a typing game combined with House of the Dead, the shooting game. There was a game like "Wack a Mole", only you would punch practice gloves that would fold out from the side of the game cabinet instead of wacking moles that pop out of holes...It's all gotten pretty wild.
Sunday there was a live music festival on the banks of one of the local rivers, "Dance on the Banks". While the bands varied wildly in the actual quality of their music, it was a lot of fun. The closing band played about an hour of Salsa music. Too bad no one here knows how to Salsa...
And, lest I forget...I found a dance studio here and will actually be taking a few ballroom dance classes again. I don't think I'll be taking it up too seriously, but it's fun to get back onto the dance floor, review everything, and get some instruction from a new instructor. Believe it or not, I think she's about 5'6" or so...very tall for a Japanese woman.
That's all for now. Stay tuned for more adventures as I finally go beyond the borders of Osaka...