Japan Déjà vu: May 8-9 – Nara City and Yoshino 奈良市と吉野

As an animal lover, I cannot miss the Deer City – Nara. According to the Japanese people, deer are regarded as heavenly animals in Japan that protect the country. Taking a stride in Nara Park, there will be deer seen everywhere.

On the 9^th I will be arriving in Yoshino, a small town visited by few foreign tourists. Pasted the peak season of the sakura-gari (cherry blossom hunting), I will be able to avoid the major crowd, and successfully get a room at the Sakoya-lyokan, the oldest Japanese-style hotel in Yoshino. It will be slight pricy, but the hot-spring-featured hotel room will weigh out all the financial concerns.

Spring in Nara Déjà vu

This time I will get to walk into the famous guohua (Chinese brush painting), Spring in Nara by the Chinese artist Shixiong Liang.

With the late spring sakura blooming, doesn't this scene look like it's walked out of the painting?

Budget

Hotel $260

Food $50

Total $310

Where

I will be going to Japan and spend half of a month there. When talking about Japan, people think about Californian Rolls and Comics. Sadly, neither of these is genuinely Japanese. Californian Roll to Japanese is like tofu burger to Americans – Japanese people have never heard about Californian Rolls. Also, comics are American art while people in Japan call theirs manga.

Besides, Japan is just so much more than its food and contemporary art. With land area 1/25 size to Canada, Japan is surprisingly blessed with 6 vastly different climate zones from north to south, and over 90,000 species of wildlife.

Who

I will be travelling by myself, which I have never done before. This will be somewhat inconvenient from a traveler’s perspective, since no one will be at my side to help me make decisions, nor will there be a company to share my laughers and doubts to a new culture. But I want to be an explorer this time, an explorer who strides along in a totally different country, with people speaking an entirely different language. And this will be a great chance for me to push myself beyond limits to overcome obstacles yet to come. To be honest, I kind of take these potential obstacles as surprises that will add flavor to my trip!