Kyoto & Nara

We loved Kyoto! Dave posted alot of the photos in the last blog. Since then we did a day trip from Kyoto to Nara, and enjoyed a riverside festival in Kyoto before we left. The riverside festival involved alot of different street performers and musicians. It was fun to hear the local flavor of rock and pop music. Of course, no festival in Japan would be complete without some hula! The hula performers were a cute group in their 70's and 80's - proving that it is never too late to learn to hula We again enjoyed the shaved ice/milk dessert that has become our favorite. And we wandered through the little side streets with all of their fun lanterns.

Nara was a nice, calm 45 minute train ride from Kyoto. It was one of the original capitals of Japan until the capital was moved to Kyoto (the capital moves alot in Japan btw). To see the good stuff, we took a very pleasant 3 mile stroll and luckily only some of it was uphill. We carb-loaded to prepare before hand with some honey-almond pizza that was pretty good. Then off we went and were immediately attacked by deer! Well, not really, but people feed them there and so one deer in particular tried to eat my 'Lonely Planet: Japan' book!

We then saw a this kid feed a deer, while he was next to this hilarious sign about how the deer can hurt you! (if you click on the pictures in the blog it will make them bigger in another box - that was you can really see the illustrations of the deer pushing over the little kid)

The back story is that when Nara was made the capital, the deer were brought in and allowed to populate the grounds as they were felt to be messengers to God. At the time Nara was capital, the emperor was very into Buddhism. Todai-ji, the temple, and its very large Buddha statue (largest Buddha in Japan) were built in order to give good will to all the people and animals of Japan. This particular temple was very, very big and very, very impressive. We spent alot of time here just sitting and admiring it. Dave called it the 'Taj Mahal' of Japanese temples and I think that fits very well. It is also one of the only things we have seen that wasn't destroyed by a fire or WWII and then rebuilt.

The next impressive place we visited was a shrine called Kasuga Taisha, which was nestled deep into a very peaceful forest. It is famous in Japan because it is surrounded by thousands of ancient lanterns which are lighted once a year during a big festival. They were very beautiful and Dave spent alot of time photographing them

Nara was awesome and so was Kyoto, we are currently starting our adventure in Osaka and will post that soon. For some random pictures though, here are a few:

Dave & I eating very delicious cream puffs! so yummy!

Me at the grocery store - it fun experiencing some normal life here. All the different sections of the grocery store are yelling out their specials and trying to get you to taste stuff!

We finally spotted some Geishas! According to the guidebook, they are hard to see because people would run after them. Hence the 'don't chase the Geishas' rule that was printed in our book! They are very shy ladies and getting a picture was a feat.

These little statues were nestled along a stream while we were walking along a small street. I couldn't resist capturing their little cuteness. If they came as souvenirs, I definitely would have gotten them.

And lastly, this was written on the side of one of the temples. It is for all of my lovely OB/GYN friends & teachers! I miss you guys and hope you are having some fun in the craziness of L&D! Also a special hi to Dr. Sigmon; this definitely made me think of you.