Japan - Day 5

So this day we went to Nara park to see all the deer and the HUGE buddha that they have at the temple there.
It was pretty amazing.
These deer are everywhere. Some are really clean and beautiful, and some look like they've suffered and are on their last legs.
I dunno if anyone officially looks after them, but they seem to know that humans means food and are no afraid at all to be around you.

You can walk down the park feeding the deer and watching it all unfold. There's shops and lots of people everywhere. There's also people selling you acorns for $5 a bag that I would make a killing off of at our house. We have enough to feed millions of deer.

Leonard caved and bought the nuts and shared them with us. So we grabbed a handful and went around feeding the deer.

They were aggressive and slobbery. But whatever man. Luckily Stacey brought hand sanitizer with her in her bag. What a life saver.

I wanted to get a video of Dru feeding them but he'd run out of food. So he pretended to feed them in this video hahahaha Then one of them wiped their snot on his t-shirt and he was done. Hahahaha Gross man.

We then headed to the Temple. It was such a beautiful day. We were really blessed with wonderful weather. 

These were in the entrance of the Temple.

They're massive.

Always beautiful with amazing craftsmanship. 

The whole crew.

Me squinting in the sun.

So this buddha was massive and made from wood. It looked like metal, but not so. I can't even believe how hard it would've been to make. Let me find some information on it.
It was finished in 752AD. Whoa can you believe something is that old? Crazy man. This is how big it is:
18 metres tall
3.2 meters just it's head.
They say it's gilt bronze. I'm not sure what that means, cause this Japanese lady told us it was made of wood.



These were on the sides of it.
Their hands are all doing the same thing and I wonder what that means you know. I asked around but no one had an answer.
Maybe I should ask my Buddhist mates.




See the hand? What is that?
So fun fact...... the nostril is big enough for a small person to climb through. So they have a log around the corner the size of the nostril. It's believed that if you crawl through it, you'll have good luck. Leonard said he climbed through it on his mission. None of us attempted to climb through it. There also was a huge line of people as well.  Can you imagine getting stuck? I might've been able to get away with it, but I wasn't willing to find out. It put it in perspective though, how big this statue really is.



More big statues.
I should've read more what it meant and documented it down. Bad tourist.

Look at this stunning gate? I'd like a gate like that at our place.
Never happen.

Then something dreadful happened.
We just found out that they'd canceled our rugby game due to the typhoon that was coming in. We were devastated. We couldn't believe that they made a decision that huge, for a game that was still so far away. We were so sad. Totally put a downer on the day.

We then headed out to Osaka. It wasn't in the itinerary, but Dru left space just in case. So it was perfect. We all wanted to go and check out the food and the shopping. We heard it was awesome, so we were excited.
So we jumped on the train and headed to Osaka.
Love the train system. There was one ride from Hiroshima to Himeji that I actually talked to an Israeli on one of the trips and got his number. He told me Israel is completely safe and I should come over. So I'm gonna do it.

So this strip was amazing. It was like vegas but better. There was SO MUCH STUFF to look at. I was just staring and doing a 360 everywhere. Plus it wasn't disgusting with naked pictures like vegas. It was amazing.
I was already glad that we came here.
Just the food and the shops, I knew we had made a good decision.

Just look at this....................wow right?

So Osaka was the first place I'd been in Japan that was dirty and smelled. Nowhere else was like this. It was worth it though, for the experience.

Amazing right? So crazy.

Look how they do their store windows so you know what the food is like? Awesome right? It's all plastic. I couldn't believe it. It helps though.

 We were hungry so we decided, first and foremost, to get something to eat. We hadn't had okonomiyaki yet, so we found a place that did that. Were were all excited.

Here we are waiting for our food. It was a little smaller space, but we're so gigantic that Japan isn't for the big that's for sure.


So yummy.
We took a timelapse of making it.

So cool right? I'm glad we ate here.

Then we were ready to shop. Bring on the shopping. 

But then we were kind've full and there was a river cruise and Puggs said he'd shout us. So we all went on a river cruise hahahahaha So fun.

Good way to see all the buildings.

It was a lot of fun and nice to be able to sit for a second. We'd been walking around everywhere. Plus we were super bummed and so it was like a fun little pick me up cruise hahaha

We then decided to try this dessert place because Liesl loves dessert. While they ordered their stuff I went shopping with Stacey then Dru and utilized the time wisely.
After they'd had their dessert we continued to shop till we dropped.
I got a lot of the stuff for family and friends on this shopping trip. It was awesome.
Osaka is crazier at night as well.
We headed out.
Once we got back to Kyoto we went to a ramen place. It was good and we saw the real way to eat ramen on a poster on the shop wall.


We couldn't stop laughing. It just makes sense.
We then headed back to sleep.
Leonard and Liesl decided they were going to do their own thing now the game had been canceled. So this was our last night with them.
It'd been wonderful to see them.
Great day even though the whole reason we came, was being canceled.

Japan - Day 4

So today was the early rising day for the four of us. We were up around 5am (ish) to get to Fushimi Inari and it was totally worth the early rising, that's for sure.
We headed over to the train station to get there.
These pictures will be out of order, due to the mouse on this computer not working and me having to go between my phone and computer to get all the pics up here.
Sorry man. When technology is working its great, when it's not, not so much.

So this is a 7-9km walk. So there's people running it and hiking it for exersize. I think I'd love to come and do it. It's just so unique and beautiful.

So these 'gates' are 'wishes' from families or individuals. They're massive right and date back hundreds of years to very recently.

This is what it looks like when you first arrive. I think this picture is funny because it's a picture with another picture going on in the background.

This is a random picture of us finding some trash at the train station. It's so clean that you never see this, like ever. I'm sure with the massive amount of foreigners here though for the RWC it was probably not a local.

They have the kanji on the other side when you're walking down. It has all the information about the wish and the date and who it belongs to.

We hardly saw anyone. Just enough people to take these pictures for us.

These shrines were all over and were wonderful. There were SO MANY CATS just running around like they owned the joint.
The local shop ladies up here feed them though, so they're living the dream up here man.

So there's mini gates that the locals put up with their wishes on the shrines.

I'm pretty sure people live up here. How cool would that be?

So at a distance these totally looked like necklaces, but what they are are origami cranes all linked in together. Can you believe that? Apparently you have to fold 1000 for your wish to be heard. That's a lot of folding.

Sweet video of us walking through the gates.

Video of the koi up the top with the shrines.

So all of the shrines had these dogs and they had bibs on them. I was fascinated by that. So we looked up why. Here's the answer: It's the parents or sometimes also other local people who put the bibs on the statues to protect the dead children in the afterlife. ... Red is perceived as a particularly protective colour and hence, it is the most common colour of the bibs.

It started slowly warming up.

Just beautiful.

One of the most beautiful walks I've ever been on.

Us being dorks.

All of the little gate wishes at the shrines.

The view, almost at the top. The top doesn't have a view it just keeps going around and starts heading down, which is kind've a bummer, cause you'd think it'd have a sweet view. But this one isn't bad.

So there was this man still doing work on the gates. So we took a video of the gates either being renewed or a new one being put in. 

Then Dru and I got a little gate and had this lady put our information on it. We wished for good luck in our family, which we totally need with all the sports being played and Dru falling off a ladder right? It was neat to see her writing on it. 

So we walked down and went back to our place to rest for a little bit. We got something to eat and then headed out to meet the Kayberry's at our next destination to meet Dru's friend that him and Llewellyn baptized on their missions. How cool is that?

So this place is called Kyomizudera. It's a Buddhist temple and it's so beautiful, like all of them. This one was being done up though, so it had some construction going on. AND there were SO MANY PEOPLE here. What a difference mid morning makes. We were so glad we got up early for our last place.

Beautiful build work.

There's more of the temple over there in the middle of the forest. So awesome.





A shrine.

So this is where you came to wash your hands and or drink the water for your wishes. There are three different places to drink and they're three different wishes. Here's what it's about:

The Otowa Waterfall is located at the base of Kiyomizudera's main hall. Its waters are divided into three separate streams, and visitors use cups attached to long poles to drink from them. Each stream's water is said to have a different benefit, namely to cause longevity, success at school and a fortunate love life. However, drinking from all three streams is considered greedy.

So we decided to do it. I just did one. No need to get greedy right?

I left it to Leonard to capture of video of it. So he captures a video of us leaving and one of his wife hahahahaha useless mate.

They had a special steam cleaning thing that these cups went in to sterilize them. Seemed legit and I never got sick so sweet as.

Here's Dru and his two mission friends, Kenji and Norie Mitsuya. They were really nice. They didn't speak much English and we didn't speak much Japanese but we made do.



It was great to hang out and to meet some people from Dru's mission.

We were trying to find some Totoro things for Yuki and were coming up short. But we got a good picture right?

It was so busy by now. We did some shopping and when to an amazing place to eat some good food and talk some more.

Kenji and Norie gave our children gifts and it was really sweet of them. So I need to send them something for Christmas for sure.
I need to do a lot of thank you notes actually because of this trip. Add it to the list mate I'm telling ya.

The shopping was really good and I picked up a few things for various people. The day was just beautiful as well. So perfect.

So because it's a temple there are women and men dressed, in their formal Japanese clothing, everywhere!! And they're all just so beautiful. It was awesome to wander around and see so much beauty in these kimonos. 

After we had some amazing food, and had had our fill of shopping, we had to say goodbye to Dru's friends. I'm really glad I was able to meet them. They're really nice.

We then headed out to the Golden Temple or it's real name, Kinkakuji, via taxi. It was a great way to go.

This temple was so beautiful but there were SO MANY PEOPLE there. But I'm glad we went. 

I mean how beautiful is that right?

It took a lot to get this picture with the mass amounts of people around.

They had Koi in the lake of course, so I had to get a picture of them.

At least you can see the mass amounts of people around in the video right? Again, super pumped we got up early for the morning one.

After we'd finished seeing all of that we were pooped. We headed back to our place. It took a little while. We then headed out to go to this shabu shabu restaurant that Dru's brother recommended. We got there and they couldn't fit us in. We were super bummed.

So I just got MacDonald's. Not my finest moment, but it hit the spot for sure.

Such a wonderful jam packed day.

I slept like a baby, and I'm pretty sure, everyone else did too.