Kyoto Excursion Part the Second

One thing that I forgot to mention in yesterday's blog: We totally went ot Mos Burger. There is a photo of one of the displays in the photo album, and it has a burger with a donut pattie. It reads "Delicious hole" in Japanese. To the less gutterminded of you (which should be none of you, if I know who reads this), that would be none of you. So I hope you find it amusing, you perverts.

We looked into more things to do in Kyoto. Aside from shrines, and the Tezuka museum (which I had no idea how to get to, and Jason didn't care about), there didn't seem to be much, although this is probably due more to our limited attempts at searching in exchange for watching Family Guy and DBZ Abridged than it is for a lack of things to do in Kyoto.

After being convinced to buy a PSP (oh god all my money) I in turn was convincing in getting us to go to Nara, the best place in Japan. No, you don't get to argue, it is really the greatest place.

We ran right to the deer enclosure and I bought some 鹿せんべい (deer crackers). The deer swarmed me the instand I bought them. They know what they want and how to get it, apparently.

Also, one of them bit me on the ass. According to a friend, I have now become a were-deer. I guess I need to start starring in Fallout Boy videos.

After plentiful deer shenanigans, we headed over to Todaiji, which is a very old and gorgeous temple with a very well tended lawn.

Also it houses the world's biggest Buddha.

Legend has it that if you can pass through the nostril of the Buddha, then you achieve enlightenment. Instead of allowing you to do this, there is a pillar with a hole the same size carved into it that you can attempt to crawl through. Neither Jason or I noticed this, so I ended up finding out about it after the fact.

Ah well, still cool. The whole building was great, actually, and there were interesting carvings aside form the Buddha statue. But the Buddha is absolutely huge. The photos I've captured don't even come close to showing you. You'd have to see it in person. Or at least find better photos.

Afterward I spotted a random udon/soba shop that I made us go to out of my hunger and desperation. I ordered udon despite not actually liking it, but I figured I'd give it another shot. It was pretty decent, but I still don't think anything beats ramen.

Afterward we went to a few more temples and a 5 story pagoda (the second tallest pagoda in Japan!), and then attempted to go to a grand temple that was closed by the time we reached it. It was also in a quite deserted area of the town, filled only with happy families, mostly in their homes, and very few tourists, aside from some girls we saw camped out playing badminton.

We headed back soon after. Or attempted. Jason is an idiot and got us on the wrong train, then we got off at a stop where we needed to wait 45 minutes for another train to stop by. What a jerk. Totally his fault and not mine for rushing us on the next train I saw just because it said express. Definitely not mine.

Somewhere in those past few days we ordered a pizza as well. It was from Dominoes, and tasted about as good as Dominoes ever tastes, but I introduced Jason to a mystical technique passed down through the ages called actually-reading-the-damn menu-fu. This allowed us to get a pizza for about ￥２１００ instead of for ￥３８００. Pretty big price gap there.

After Nara we went back and watched one of the Futurama movies, and called it a night. We made plans with Mel and her friend to meet up at the aquarium the next day, and had high hopes that they wouldn't leave before we woke up.

to be continued...