Travel Diary - Day5&6

I forgot to mention that I spent my 77th birthday at Hiroshima. Allmy co-tourists wished me a happy birthday and Kesari Travels, the tourconductor gifted me a packet of chocolates. In the morning weproceeded from Hiroshima to Nara by bus. We visited the Todaiji templethere. In Hindi the suffix 'ji' is an honorific. In Japan, itsignifies a temple. We also took in a deer park. There are vendorsvending feed for the deer and the deer freely roaming about , nudgeyou with their noses and cajole you to feed them. We refreshedourselves with Tea, Coffee,juices etc. I took a can of the cider whichwas rather good.
We then went to Kyoto city which in the old days was the capital. Itis the only place in Japan where you see traditional architecture. Therest of Japan is so much westernized that but for the presence of theJapanese people in such an overwhelming number, you could mistake thecities for America. Japan has out-americanned the Americans in manyways, in many spheres. At Kyoto, we visited the Kiyomizu temple, theGolden Pavilion and the Nijo Castle that gives you an idea of howthings were for the powerful in the days of the Shoguns ( Warlords whowielded real power, while the Emperor was merely a figurehead ).
Next, we travelled to Osaka and visited the Osaka Castle. It wasinterestig to see the sliding wooden shutters. All the constructionwas wooden, beams, pillars, flooring - almost everything. They hadkept some statues in their traditional dresses in various postures togive one an idea of the kind of life, the inmates of the castle, led.In the evening we went to check in a hotel nearer to the airport toavoid waking up at an unearthly hour for catching the next morningflight to Beijing. One interesting fact is that people in Tokyo andother big cities in Japan prefer to use the public transport such asbuses, trains, metros etc. rather than personal cars and two wheelersfor commuting to and fro their places of work. They sacrifice personalcomfort willingly for a collective good in terms of lesser pollution,lesser traffic jams and so on. The public transport is sutablyefficient to aid them in this.
Japan is Japan because of the quality of its people. Verydisciplined, courteous to a fault, hard working enough to beworkaholics, forever innovating, improving things, be it products, beit services, be it systems. Productivity is a religion here. A shoefactory on strike does not stop production. It merely produces onlythe left shoe, so that the management cannot sell the shoes. Oncehowever, the accord is reached, the right shoe is produced in therequired number, so that sale can take place. There is temporarydislocation but no big loss to the organization which is mother toboth the employees and the management. Had Netaji Subhash Chandra Bosesuccededwith Japanese help and Japan had come in place of Britain, ourBengali friends would have been the first to rebel ! Such is thedifference in their collective characteristics.
Pappa