06/08/11 - Wednesday

We woke up and walked to the Kyoto Post Office for more cash (helpful hint: the most reliable ATMs for foreign cards are in the post offices of each town):

We then took the local train to Nara to 1) find the big Buddha inside the biggest wooden structure in the world and 2) find the deer park. On the train the boys were very helpful with letting me take a picture:

When we arrived in Nara we went to the help desk for some maps and found a little statue of Nara's mascot. I asked Michael to stop slouching and this is what I got:

We used the maps and walked our way towards the deer park, which was on the way to the temple. About halfway there we heard a ruckus across the street, and we came upon this scene (ooh the blog's first video! (please excuse my words of wisdom at the end)):

Turns out the deer park was bigger than we thought. There were hundreds of tame deer everywhere! There were wafers you could buy to feed them (we didn't buy any) and the schoolchildren would build up courage to hand feed a deer, then chicken out at the last second and run away (causing the deer to chase them), or throw it on the ground. Here's the warning sign we saw about the deer (why do they target old ladies and little girls??):

By the way that is a pretty average sign in Japan. Not the subject matter or the pictures, but the amount of kanji versus English. It is possible for non-Japanese speakers to get around, but have an open mind if you attempt it! We walked through the big park and here is some of what the views offered:

We eventually came up to the area with the temple, with little shops leading up to it. The first gate is in the background:

As I mentioned before, the bigger temples have two statues at their front gates; one with their mouth open and one with their mouth closed. This one had one of the most elaborate, striking statues I've ever seen, carved out of wood:

We passed the gate and walked towards famed Todaiji Temple, paid our admission, and entered the closed off area. The building behind me is the biggest wooden structure in the world (all the white shirts/black pants are school children)!

It was immense.

See the light brown box at the bottom of the above picture? That had incense burning in it as big as fire-pit logs. This is notable as it was the first temple we've seen with any incense at all! This is the view as you enter the door:

That would be the largest bronze cast statue in the world! I can't tell you how huge this thing was. It was in the center of the building, and the path led you around it in a circle.

The big thing behind the Buddha is all gold! In the back of the Buddha was the original Buddha, covered in gold...

There was an extremely intricate wooden carved statue...

A scale model of the building and the surrounding areas...

and another giant intricate wooden carved statue...

On our way out of the temple, we got stopped by a group of about 5 - 6 Japanese school kids about 12 - 13 years old, and they asked if they could interview us for an English assignment. Of course we were excellent role models: What is your favorite Japanese word? Michael: Kampei! Billy: Biru! What is your favorite thing to do in Japan? Karaoke! Favorite area of Japan? Shinjuku, Misawa. Afterwords they took pictures with us, gave us their sincere thanks as well as a folded paper crane for each of us.

We took the bus back to the station.

This is how you signal you want to stop on a Japanese bus:

Also interesting, the bus had an automatic ignition cut-off every time it stopped! From the station we took the train back to Kyoto. By the way, one of my favorite vending machine coffee brands was Boss Coffee. Look who the Boss turned out to be!

We were planning on heading to the Manga Museum and a famous street called Shinmonzen-dori as recommended by Hiroshi for antique shopping, but by the time we got back it was 5pm and everything was closing.

We went up the other side of the sky-walk and decided to eat at a "Spanish" bar, and caused a gai-jin faux pas by being too early for them to serve food, but they opened the kitchen early for us and we felt bad. The food was pretty overpriced and not very much of it, but it was barfood after all.

We went down to our regular toy store so Billy could buy the 2nd Audi RC body he had hesitated to buy the night before (an incredibly rare find even if it was on eBay), but the store's entire stock had changed since the night before - crazy to think about when the store was about the size of your average WalMart!

Then we decided to explore the area of Kyoto behind the station and the first building that we saw was a karaoke building (remember our ambling the previous night?)! We didn't go in but we also saw an Aeon Mall so we went in to go shopping.

We found a dedicated Crocs store:

Went to an amazingly cool fashion store but didn't end up buying anything.. I got the most amazing Vans ever. They are bright pink striped KNITTED high tops that only came in mens' sizes. We also came across the 2nd knitting store in Japan where I bought some yarn and a crochet book and ate a proper dinner.

We walked further and found a pet store. The animals were all behind glass (sound proof) and were super cute and..

INSANELY EXPENSIVE!! That kitten is 320,000 yen. That is about $4,350.00. That dog is 980,000 yen which is over $12,500! OK well it's on sale for 784,000 yen, only just over $10,000. Turns out that the store offered financing so you can pay around $100/month for your pet if you take it home today! They also sold chipmunks, flying squirrels, ferrets, and meerkats, but no rats, unfortunately for Michael.

Michael got some kickin' Adidas shoes and I confused the cash register lady greatly by asking her to throw away my old sneakers (I was now wearing the knitted Vans. This would turn out to be a mistake as the insides were vinyl and incredibly painful to break in. Oh well).

We got back to the hotel and played with our toy cars and legos. They had those turn-style coin machines you could buy toys from everywhere, but unlike in the US, the toys are actually good! Sure they cost a couple bucks, but they are actually well made. Mike went back to his room and Billy and I started to watch Sherlock Holmes (with Robert Downey Jr.), but it was 3am so we fell asleep instead.