Nara

In Nara, we stayed at a rather fancy hotel that had a nice onsen in the basement. We took advantage of that and used it every night.

Nara has a large park with tame deer. The deer are considered messengers of the gods and therefore the wander around freely and people feed them “deer cookies”. Around the park are various temples and things. One of them is the largest wooden building in Japan (or maybe the world?) and inside is a giant Buddha. At 16 meters tall, he is the second largest Buddha in Japan and the largest made of bronze (they like to rank things here).

For Amy’s birthday we went out for yakiniku followed by karaoke. I told Lindsay and Amy that they had to do karaoke while in Japan or they would miss out on one of the most Japanese activities. At first, they were wary and unsure of themselves, but they quickly got into it and loved it.