The Easter Bunny doesn’t visit Japan, so, Mommy and Tati surprised Harriette and I with eggs, some chocolate and some plastic with mini toys inside. It was a lovely gesture for them to do for us. (Parents: we only realised afterward that we got the dates wrong and did easter a week early. Epic Parent Fail!!!)
Relatively early this morning, we walked to the station and caught the 1 hour train to Nara, Japans first permanent Capital city. When we stepped off the train, the sun was shining and we immediately took off our jumpers and put on our sunglasses, before we set off exploring.
Our first stop in Nara were the 3 and 5 storey pagodas. Pagodas in Japan are part of the Temple complex, and serve as ceremonial space for holy artefacts. We saw multiple different temples, shrines ands pagodas in Nara. Most of them had an element in red and this fact has a very ancient meaning. Long ago, Japanese people believed the color red was seen as a way to scare away evil spirits.
Tati used the map to navigate a route to see all the best highlights of Nara Park.
We stumbled upon a beautiful lake with a bridge and a pavilion on stilts, there were artists dotted around the lake to paint it from different angles. Some of their paintings were really very good!
We noticed there were little terrapins in the lake, I think they are Yellow-bellied sliders. At the jetty, there were rowing boats for hire, we begged mommy to have a go! The hiring people explained only three people were allowed in each boat, so us three girls went together. While rowing round the lake, we saw a wedding bride and groom having pictures in the pavilion. They looked amazing in their traditional Japanese Wedding Outfits, Kimono’s. The cherry blossom tres around the lake made a stunning backdrop for their wedding photos.
The cherry blossom petals started dropping off the trees in the afternoon breeze, it looked like snow!
We tired the Nara national museum but unfortunately it was closed. So we had a picnic lunch instead. After lunch we bought deer biscuits and went in search of hungry deer. We didn’t have to go too far to find them. They are very tame and polite, although there are warnings that they can bite, kick, butt and knock people down!
Feeling very hot and sticky, we had a quick ice cream before catching the train home.
Earlier in the week, we had in incident with the camera on wrist, and a child falling, it was completely broken. So we bought them a new one for the rest of our adventure, and this one has a neck strap!
Then it was laundry and dinner. We had the Osaka version of Okonomiyaki, Japanese cabbage pancakes we ate in Hiroshima. It’s safe to say we all preferred the Hiroshima version. Tomorrow we are having a leisurely morning, and continuing our adventure to a monastery in Mt.Koyassan.
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