We woke up this morning and we had breakfast that we bought from the day before... bread, cheese and smoothies. We then headed out to the Kyoto JR (aka Rail way station) and realized we had a half hour before our train was leaving so we picked up some Mochas and headed to the platform... on the way we were tempted by the chocolate Belgian waffles. The waffles won and we enjoyed a second breakfast of Mochas and chocolate waffles on the train. Second breakfasts rock! Those little people from Lord of the Rings know where it`s at!!!
When we arrived in Nara and headed to Todaiji Temple which is the largest wooden structure in the whole world! It houses a gigantic Buddha. It is said that if you can fit through the hole the size of his nostril then you will reach enlightenment. Instead of climbing the Buddha they have a nostril size hole cut out of one of the pillars. Of course I had to try and squeeze through. It was successful but I need a little help from one of the guides to get all the way through. Enlightenment here I come!!! Outside the temple they have a tame deer area where you can feed the deer. Yeah... they know when you have deer food. Imagine 6 deers heading towards you mouths oven each jockeying to get at the food... if I didn`t keep walking backwards they would have surrounded me! It was great fun and Anna got it on video.
After the Todaiji Temple we headed to Kasuga Taisha Shrine. This is the shine of 3,000 lanterns and there must have been way more than that. They had stone ones, and green ones (probably bronze at one time), and gold ones. It was very beautiful. It would have been so pretty at night when they light some of them. Unfortunately, we had to head back to Kyoto. We stopped at 7-11 for lunch and headed to the train. We enjoyed a nice leisurely lunch on the train as we headed back to Kyoto.
Back in Kyoto, we headed to the Golden Pavillion. It is a pavillion entirely covered on gold leaf. It was so beautiful in the setting sunlight. After the golden pavillion we headed to the Kyoto Handicraft centre. I got a beautiful dish and a traditional wood block print. We could have continued to shop but the store was closing :(
We decided we wanted to have traditional Japanese Tempura for dinner. We headed to this place in the guide book (it didn`t steer us wrong the last time). But on the way there we ran into the nicest man who didn`t speak much English. We managed to communicate that we wanted tempura and he managed to communicate that he had tempura. At first I wasn`t sure but Anna made that call and we decided to take the man up on his offer. WE ARE SO GLAD WE DID!!! It was by far the best dinner I`ve had the whole trip. The man and what I assume was his wife brought us beer and fried us up traditional fish and veggie tempura. He also gave us a few gifts including special fish tempura and some sushimi. Oh baby it was good. He also offered us some Gumi which looked a lot like cherries but were longer and had golden dots. They were SO good. Better then cherries (Anna says they are just as good.) I LOVE new fruit! We gave him some gifts (really nothing big... Anna had some magnets and I had some Canada stickers and some pins) and he gave us some beautiful pictures he had taken of Kyoto. It was a fantastic night.
Anna and I got some plum wine at the liquor some so we are off to enjoy it before bed!
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Okay what's the deal with the 7-11's? I don't even go to 7-11's in my own city! Is there another 7-11 that's a lot cooler than the ones we got here... or is your addiction to 32oz "sun quencher" slurpies just that strong? Sounds like you're having a blast.
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