Pam:(you will enjoy the benefit of paragraphs as I write):  We left this a.m. at 9:30 on the express train to Nara out of Kyoto Station.  It took roughly an hour to make the trip out to Nara; once we exited the train station we got on a city bus bound for Todaiji Temple (180 yen per person) and Nara Park.

Todaiji Temple is the largest wooden structure housing the largest Buddha in Japan (yes, he’s bigger than the Big Guy in Kamakura).  To get to the temple we went through the “gauntlet” of hungry deer.  Debbie and Candace spent 150 yen each for packages of deer crackers.  The most annoying deer was a big buck with antlers who kept sticking his face in front of Debbie.  Debbie tried the “Dog Whisperer”/Cesar Milan technique of pushing his head away in an attempt to establish “dominance”, but I don’t think the critter got the message!

Once we escaped the deer, we went up to the temple grounds and paid our admission to enter.  Inside the temple it is quite cavernous (and dark).  There are a number of very large Buddhist deity statues in there besides the aforementioned Buddha.  The creepiest one to me was “dressed” in a bright red cape with shower-cap looking thing on its head.  That one had to do with occult powers or something.  It was weird.

We left the temple grounds and went through the park to another temple called Nigatsu-do.  You have to climb a number of stone steps to reach sort of a veranda around the temple.  Since today was a clear day, you could see a lot of Kyoto in the distance.

By this time we were hungry, so we headed out the back of Nara Park and found a shop where we bought some packages of the local specialty pickle, and then we went to a mom & pop restaurant where we ate lunch.  It happened to be the same place where the Ikeda family ate last year – and Pam had the same thing for lunch: tempura with cold buckwheat noodles (Ten zaru soba).  Debbie had a cold somen (thin Chinese noodles) dish, Candace had ramen, and Emily had Unadon (eel on rice) which had grated tororo (yam/potato) on top.

After our meal we walked back through the park, caught the city bus back to the train station, and then took the “rapid” train to the Uji stop.  We walked to the Byodo-in temple, which was built around the 11th century and is quite ancient.  There is also a very nice museum included in the admission price to the temple grounds.  (Nice as in bilingual and air-conditioned!)

We had hoped to visit one more temple today, but it was already after 5 p.m. when we left Byodo-in so we had to skip the Fushimi-Inari shrine.  However, it is only two stops from Kyoto station (7 minutes), so I think we can squeeze in a visit later this week.

Once we got back to the station we went down to the Isetan department store basement and picked up some food for dinner.  Emily & I ended up with four Chinese pork buns and some beautiful fruit/gel cups for dessert.  Debbie & Candace picked up some goodies as well, including some meatballs that caught Candace’s eye!

Tomorrow we are heading out to Osaka; we’re going to the Osaka Aquarium first, and later Emily will meet with Lisa to go to a concert at the Kyocera Dome at 6 p.m.

Emily will now add her comments and upload some photos.

Emily: Indeed, now I shall add my comments. As mentioned earlier, we went on the Nara Line to Nara. At the station we took bus number 2 at bus stop 1 (this is for future reference!) to stop N-7, which stops right in front of Nara Koen (Park). There were a lot of Europeans around the area and on the bus and I’m yet to figure out what language they’re speaking. Definitely not British or French because those are the only I can recognize. The deer were pretty amusing; I tried taking pictures with them (my head next to the deer’s head) but my aim’s pretty bad so I ended up cutting off half of my head. Oh well. We walked to Todaiji and there was a half blind deer near the temple gate place. One of its eyes was all white and it was really sad. I bowed to it and said “Ohayou Gozaimasu” (good morning) and it bowed back. I felt bad for it and wanted to take it home with me (just kidding). The thing with the shower cap that Mom mentioned I think is an “ojizousan” (not sure if anybody would get that) but the little desctiption says that if someone touches part of it then touches the same part on their own body then they will be healed. So if I wanted to cure my headaches I could touch its head then touch mine and I’d be all better. Maybe. Todaiji was pretty cool and I took pictures of pretty much everything there. Mom took a picture between two head statues that Alex took a picture with 5 years. We bought a postcard to send to Mom’s work and I bought a little charm with two deer on it. We walked through the park to Nigatsudo and the view was pretty clear from the top. Nothing much else important about Nigatsudo. The steps on the way up were pretty cool because the bottom three steps and the top three steps had different patterns on them. We decided to look for the small restaurant we ate lunch at last year where the kind old man had us eat in the little family restaurant in the back of their shop. So we wandered up the path toward Mount Wakakusa (but didn’t go up, of course). Along the way I found a cicada on a tree (heard its shrill shrieking noise) and took a picture and a short video to record the sound. I was happy I finally got my cicada picture (I’ve developed a strange fascination for taking pictures of insects. Not sure why or how). Anyway, we stopped on the shop street to stare into a door to see if it was the restaurant we were looking for and then this lady came out and was like (in Japanese, of course) “Come in!” so we did. Since Debbie was looking for Narazuke for her husband she got some there and Mom got some too. We found the shop we were looking for and ate there. In addition to my eel meal, I also had cream soda which was melon soda with a scoop of ice cream on top. I saved it for last and it was really refreshing. After eating we kind of meandered back to the bus stop. While others were using the restroom I tried (and failed) to use a tote bag to catch dragonflies. I really wish I had a net or something. We took a picture next to a pond that was really pretty and the dragonflies were mocking me because I didn’t get a picture of them. We walked to the bus stop and got on bus number 1 back to the station. The darn bus dropped us off across the street from the station instead of at the station. No big deal, though. We took the rapid line to Uji and I slept. Good thing Mom was there to wake me up because otherwise I would have slept all the way to the end of the train line. Uji was pretty cool. We walked out the south exit and walked down the street to the river and turned right and walked like 5 minutes until we got to Byodo-in. Mom had me get the tickets for her (Otona, ichi mai. Koukousei, ichi mai). Byodo-in’s situated on a lake so it’s really pretty (Google it if I don’t post a picture). We walked into the museum which I loved. It had all the deity carvings which are so intricately done and they have so much detail. They’re like little deities floating on clouds and they’re all made out of wood. It’s amazing and the museum’s one of my favorites. Mom and I walked through the gift shop and waited as Debbie and Candace finished their walk through the museum. The little sitting area was outside but it was covered on top, and there these little butterflies stuck beneath the covering because they kept trying to fly upward (into the white glass or plexiglass or whatever it was) but kept failing. The butterflies were spazzing. There were some boys racing across the wood sitting area (I think they were imitating swimming) and they were quite energetic. After Debbie and Candace came, we walked back to the train station. The train we caught was delayed 7 minutes which wasn’t too bad but we waited about 15 minutes on the platform because we just barely missed the train that came and left right before we got onto the platform. I bought a water from the vending machine while we waited for the train. It was scheduled for 5:22 or so but came around 5:30. Not so bad. On the train ride back to Kyoto the man next to me almost fell asleep on me but when I was adjusting my hair clip I think I hit his head slightly and he woke up. I decided to just close my eyes on the train ride but I opened them at every stop. The time I was almost about to really fall asleep was when we actually got to Kyoto so I had to get up anyway. We walked to Isetan and went and bought food, as Mom said. I got a peach and mango jelly cup and she got an orange cup. They were really good and incredibly refreshing! When we got back to the room we had tonkatsu (pork cutlet) sandwiches we bought this morning, a pork bun, and our jellies. We watched TV and Sakurai Sho was at the Olympics watching Japan play Canada in baseball. At 8 “Hey! Hey! Hey!” was on Fuji TV and I got to see Arashi on it. (“Look! Sakurai Sho’s on two channels at once!”) It would be funnier if both shows claimed to be live. Anyway, they had this cool thing on Hey!x3 where there were two “cool people” who had two different talents. The first guy could play stuff on the keyboard from memory and even blindfolded. He did stuff like the melodies for Tokyo and Shibuya Station and then he did the startup sound for Windows XP. He also did Super Mario Bros., which I’ve heard lots of times on the keyboard, but his was pretty impressive. He did Arashi’s debut song, “Arashi.” The second guy made a flute out of a chikuwa (according to Wikipedia, it’s a “Japanese food-like product made from ingredients such as fish surimi, salt, sugar, starch, and egg white”). He played little tunes on his little chikuwa thing and he tuned it by eating part of it. Seriously. Then the two “cool guys” did a collaboration on Arashi’s song and it was cute. Arashi performed their single that’ll come out on Wednesday called “truth.” That’s about it from me! I’ll upload pictures now.

Mom said “put LOTS of pictures” so  I’m posting 10 today + 3 videos instead of 4 pictures. Now, aren’t you lucky!? And I also figured out what it means by “image caption” hahaha. Another note, sorry that Youtube butchers video quality.

Debbie feeding deer

Eel with tororo

The deer was making sounds for its baby.

Byodoin