Jan 29
Today we slept in and left for Himeji Castle at midday, known for being the most well preserved and beautiful castle in Japan; it’s never been touched by war and is pretty much in its original state (apart from restorations). We planned on going to visit the Okayama Gardens as well, half an hour away from Himeji, though we ran out of time, but it’s winter and the gardens are mainly grass so it wasn’t that disappointing to not see it.

The castle was really beautiful, with lots of really deep water wells surrounding it and towering white walls; the views from above were amazing though nauseating, and the staircases to get up each floor were insanely steep with ducking required to get under support beams. The highlight though was the free bicycle hire at the train station and riding to and from the castle. I’ve not ridden a bike for nearly ten years… oh god I was uncoordinated. It was great fun, nearly falling into bushes and using my feet to stop. We walked through a Japanese supermarket before leaving, which was a bit bizarre with fresh stinky seafood sitting there for you to take, wondered through the department store at the train station (which was incredibly bizarrely laid out; clothes, stationary, laundry/bathroom products and bed sheets in the one section) and caught the shinkansen home, just because we could.

We went out to Dotombori for dinner and had the same ramen as last time (which wasn’t anywhere near as good because I’d binged on Milky lollies again), attacked some arcade machines again (we both won stuff ^_^), walked into a pachinko parlour, got BLASTED with noise and colour, had no idea what the hell to do with the free balls we found laying on a counter, then came home. Hooray.

Tomorrow: Kyoto again to see the Golden and Silver Pavilions and a famous Zen rock garden temple.

Jan 28
We visited Nara today, a city renowned for its world heritage listed buildings, but by now we were a bit shrined and templed out so just went to see the main one - Todai-Ji, a Buddhist temple which is the largest wooden building in the world, containing a massive Buddha, the Daibutsu, the largest enclosed Buddha in the world.

We set off by train in the morning and walked to the temple, along the way seeing dozens and dozens of deer, darker in colour than the ones in Miyajima but even more everywhere. We walked through a park shrouded in mist with a small stream running through it, laughed at the animal warning signs that were there (the cartoon angry deer and apparently farting dog were the best) and headed down the pathway towards the temple. Along a strip of tourist shops we tried out Japanese soft-serve ice-cream cones; I had sweet potato, Prue had green tea, bizarre flavours but actually pretty tasty. We got surrounded by curious/hungry deer, and decided to buy deer biscuits from a vendor to feed them. What a mistake that was.

While cute, slow-moving and curious, once food is on the agenda the deer suddenly became fast and vulture-ous large seagulls. I quickly got rid of my biscuits as they started biting at my clothing, my hand and my bag straps (which now has smudged deer biscuit and spit over it, yuck). Prue on the other hand opted to start feeding them slowly, each one a piece of biscuit. She quickly got surrounded (“One for you, one for you, ahhhhh, you’ve already had one, go away!!”), had them biting at her scarf and started off in a trot herself as she began to jog away from them. They chased, and the hilarious scene is on film, with Prue eventually giving the biscuits away then running for dear life. =P Okay so not all that dramatic but they were greedy and annoying.

In front of the temple are two massive wooden gates, with really large statues on either side, kind of like the one at Koyasan; we went inside the temple, which smelled strongly of the delicious incense they burn everywhere here; the Buddha was freakin MASSIVE!!! Maybe three storeys tall? I didn’t realise how big it’d be. Beside it were two smaller ones, but the lighting was pretty dark so no photographs really turned out very well. Apparently the temple is a third smaller than the original when it was built, so I can’t imagine how big the original must’ve been. Behind the Buddha is a hole in a pillar of wood the size of the statue’s nostril; it’s believed that if you can fit through it, then you will be enlightened. After nearly peeing herself laughing while a bunch of tourists looked on, Prue managed to pull me through the hole and vice versa, but neither of us feels any holier. Yet.

We caught the bus back to the station after Prue bought a deer beanie for her head, and had udon noodles (they were really kind of slimey) for a late lunch/early dinner before heading home. At night we went out to Shinsekai for fried food on a stick for dinner (cheese, chicken, beef) after attacking capsule machines in Den Den Town to complete our World Axis sets. After chocolate milkshakes for dessert we headed to Spa World. It’s an eight storey hotel/onsen that has a European themed and Asian themed onsen floor alternating between men and women each month. After trying out the top communal family level together in swimmers, we headed down to give the singular gender levels a go… but we couldn’t face being naked in front of total strangers (so much nakedness O_O) and so opted instead to ditch that idea and just play the capsule machines instead. I won a few Pokémon plushies and we took awesome SPARKLING purikura… win. ^_^