Sunday: Nara

At 3:00am Sunday I woke up to discover D quietly setting up his camera to take a picture of himself sleeping on the traditional futon. He hit the delay button on his camera and then scurried back into bed and pretended to be sleeping when the camera went "click." He was just so excited about being there--it was really sweet.

We woke up at 6:00 and D announced that he was going to get the full experience and was going down to the public bath. I swallowed my fears of a tub full of Japanese ladies giggling at my cellulite and went down with him. We parted ways, he to the left, me to the right. And guess what? There were no other rubber slippers waiting outside the baths. No one else was in there! We each got our own totally private bath! YAY!!! Disaster averted!

Breakfast was served in our own private breakfast room overlooking the garden. Again, D had a very fascinating meal that he photographed course by course. Half-way through breakfast, D looks at me with a goofy smile on his face and says, "This is the coolest thing I've ever done." And I had to agree. The whole experience was just that...an experience. The level of service, the kindness, the order, the aesthetics... This little ryokan experience is sort of a microcosm for the Japanese way of life. It's a great way to really get a grasp on the culture and customs that are so important to the Japanese people.

After breakfast, we changed back into our clothes and prepared for checking out. It seemed so silly to me that I was actually worried about staying there and now I didn't want to leave. We went downstairs to checkout and I spotted a case that displayed for sale some of the Japanese pottery that we had used in our meals. Just the night before I had commented on the deer-themed chopstick rests and how neat they were, considering our deer encounters on this trip. And there they were for sale, along with the tea cups like the ones we used. So, we bought some chopstick rests and 2 tea cups. We can drink green tea at home and remember this amazing place.

D was paying our bill with Aya when she suddenly shuffled into another room and came back with a gift for us. She gave us a set of chopsticks and rests. And get this--one pair is chartrusey green and the other bright orange. Our favorite colors. It sounds weird, but it was a little deep at that moment. It just seemed...well, a little surreal. She is such a great lady. She giggles a lot and was so much fun to be around. Language barrier? What language barrier?

Before we left, Aya took our picture at the entrance to the ryokan. Each time she took our photo this weekend, she took such care to make sure the composition was pleasing. I will really treasure those pictures. At Aya's urging, D and I roamed through the garden one more time. It was raining still, so Aya opened our umbrellas and sent us out the door. All I can say is Japanese gardens are the bee's knees. AMAZING. And covered in moss. Have I mentioned how much I love moss?

We stopped back at the front door to pick up our backpack. Aya was waiting for us. She helped D get his backpack on. And then the bowing match. I hope we conveyed our gratitude for such an amazing experience. Man, I really need to read up on bowing. "Sayonara", said Aya. Sayonara, Aya. Hopefully, we'll be back some day.

It was 10:00am when we left Kankaso and we had a lot to pack in today. Because of yesterday's rain, we didn't get to spend the time we wanted to seeing the temples, shrines and pagodas in Nara's Deer Park. It was still raining this morning, but it was much warmer out and we were well-rested and determined. Kankaso is in the Deer Park, so we didn't have far to walk to get to the Todai-ji Temple grounds. As we were walking the road to the temple, the rain suddenly stopped and the rest of our day was clear!

Nearing the temple, the fearless deer (a.k.a. 'messengers of God') were everywhere. They are so neat. I just love their adorable selves. I got to thinking that I wish Milwaukee had herds of fearless deer that hung out in the parks. (And I wish we had a glacier, too, but that's a different story.) Anyway, we had lots of fun petting deer and taking their photos. Lots of photos. Those fearless deer were fearless contributors to the 1,000 photos in 2 days, that's for sure. Adorable creatures.

Todai-ji Temple and the grounds surrounding it are...BIG. Awe-inspiringly big. Daibutsu-den (Hall of the Great Buddha) stands 157 feet tall and 187 feet wide and is considered the biggest wooden building in the world. It houses an ENORMOUS 53-foot tall bronze Buddha. The thing is HUGE. COLOSSAL. GIGANTIC. While we were eyeing up the Buddha, D was approached by a group of happy, giggly school kids in uniform who wanted to know if we would have our picture taken with them. School kids often say "hello!" to us and giggle when we say hi back. Because Japan is so monoethnic, being anything other than Japanese carries a bit of celebrity status with the youth. We posed for a photo with these kids and they were so happy it was ridiculous. And then they asked Dan for our address so they could mail the photo to us. As he wrote out our address for them, they peered over to watch him write smiles as big as can be. It'll be fun to see if the picture shows up in our mailbox.

Speaking of youngsters, even on weekends big groups of uniformed school kids are EVERYWHERE. I don't know what the school schedule is like here, but I am curious. Many of our photos from today have school kids in them. I love to see all of their different uniforms and hear them laughing and carrying on like kids everywhere do.

So back to temples and stuff... Nara Park is amazing because so many temples and shrines are within such close proximity to one another. We left the Todai-ji grounds and wandered up a deer-thick walking path up what seemed like a gazillion steps to Nigatsu-do Hall, overlooking the city. We continued on the walking path to Kasuga Taisha Shrine. This shrine is blow-your-mind phenomenal with over 2,000 stone lanterns lining the walkways of the heavily wooded grounds. Moss covers many of the lanterns. AMAZING. Apparently all 2,000 lanterns are lit 3 days out of the year. I cannot even begin to imagine how awesome that would be. Guess we'll have to make a return trip for that...

From there we walked to Kofuku-ji Temple and its Five-Story Pagoda built in 1426. It is huge--164 feet tall. Near the Five-Story Pagoda is the Three-Story Pagoda built in 1114. I am amazed over and over again at the history here. The preservation of these temples, shrines and pagodas is remarkable. The scale of some of these places makes me wonder how they were even built in the time they were, but also how intense maintenance demands must be.

We made our way to the train station and caught the 4:00 train to Kyoto to see the 10,000 small torii at Fushimi-Inari Taisha that create a tunnel up the hill and into the woods on a path that eventually leads to one of Kyoto's oldest shrines. I have seen pictures of the "torii tunnel" a few times, but this is another time where seeing it in person was...WOW. The site of those thousands of bright reddish-orange torii with their black characters against the green of trees winding up as far as your eye can see...just amazing. So much of what we've seen the past week has been so visually stunning; more so than anywhere we've ever been. We decided to go to Japan as a "once in a lifetime" trip, but I know we'll be back.

By 8:00 we were checking back in at the ANA Hotel in Kyoto for another 4 nights before heading home on Thursday. The next 3 days we will spend in and surrounding Kyoto. There's so much to see and not much time left!

A few (well, more than a few) pictures from Sunday: The 3:00am shot...At breakfast...Aya helps D figure out how to eat his complicated food...Ummmmm, breakfast soup?...Ummmmmm, tofu and stuff?...D enjoying his unidentifiable food...Aya took this photo of us after breakfast...Me in the rainy garden at Kankaso...D and Aya at the ryokan entrance...Aya took this photo of us as we prepared to leave...Happy me...D having a moment with one of God's messengers...Me and Mr. Fearless...Kids trying to get the perfect shot...School kids gather around the incense alter at Todai-ji Temple...Celebrity D...Big Buddah...He sort of looks like one of God's messengers, doesn't he?...School girls posing for D's camera...Some of the 2,000 mossy stone lanterns at Kasuga Taisha Shrine...Mmmmmm, green tea ice cream (and deer waiting for dropped cones)...Mom and daughter shopping the main street in Nara...Torii tunnel at Fushimi-Inari Taisha...I love the torii tunnel.