After a very busy week, we are all thankful to have a free day in Kyoto! Some of us decided to go our own ways, so I will write this from my (Tori's) perspective, and let my other team members fill in what they did during their day.
At around midnight last night, while everyone else was asleep, Raakhi and I experienced our first earthquake! We were in our beds talking, and suddenly the beds started shaking, and the building felt like it was swaying from side to side. It lasted for about ten seconds. It was quite the experience!
This morning at 10, Kirsten, Chelsea, and I left to grab a quick breakfast and spend our day in Nara! Since the town is around 45 minutes away, we had to take a cab to the station, and then a train to get there. After running around trying to figure out which ticket to buy and which platform to go to, we finally got it. Nara is a very old Japanese town with a lot of Buddhist history. It has eight temples and shrines, and over half of them are World Heritage sites. Since Kirsten has studied Japan, she knew she wanted to go there from the start, so Chelsea and I were happy for the opportunity to dive deeper into Japan and see more historical sites!
After getting off the train, we found a Tourist Center and got maps to help us navigate our way to the temples, all being World Heritage locations. Our first stop was the Kofukuji Temple where we saw a well known five-story pagoda, and we got to pet and take pictures with lots of deer! Next, we went to the Gangoji Temple, and then the Todaiji Temple where we saw the huge, beautiful Buddah called Daibutsuden! There were so many people because it is such a famous place, and we loved being there. Finally, we hiked to the Kasuga Taisha Shrine, looked around, saw priestesses for the first time, and pet more deer.
We then took a cab back to the main road, had dinner in a Japanese-Italian restaurant, and then got on a train to head back to the hotel in Kyoto! It was overall a successful (and tiring) day, and I am so glad I took the opportunity to go!
(Switching over to the to the other bloggers)
The rest of the group Lauren, Geoff, Kennedy & I stayed at the hotel most of the day to catch up on some rest and studies. We ate two lavish meals and were able to indulge in a traditional Thai massage. The combination of pressure points and stretching was an instant relief from the busy travel. For a tiny Asian woman the pressure amount was impressive. After we all indulged our selves at the Thai Sabai Massage Center, on the third floor our hotel, we returned to Musashi Sushi that we went to the previous day for our group dinner. The sushi Conveyor belt and the cheap prices got us to return. We continued to repeat our previous day by going to a bakery just around the corner from Musashi Sushi. We all got a piece of rectangular cheesy bread and tried to save it for later. We then hopped in a cab and returned home to the Palace Side Hotel to pack for our travels to Hakone.
