日八

Kyoto really shows off the cultural differences between Japan and the United States. When you peel away the modern construction prevalent in both cities you quickly find that there is a great deal more recorded history in Japan than one could ever hope to find in the US. Our first full day in Kyoto found us visiting the old Imperial palace located there. Kyoto makes Washington D.C. look brand new in comparison because Kyoto was the (overall) undisputed capitol of Japan for over 1100 years up until some time around the Meiji restoration where for all intents and purposes the capitol was moved to Tokyo. However oddly enough Tokyo was never truly declared to be the new capitol, it just sort of happened. The imperial palace gardens are truly wondrous and my only regret is not being allowed into them, you can only see them from the front but nowhere else. Of course no trip to Kyoto is truly complete without a trip to Kinkakuji, which may arguably be the single most famous (artificial) structure in Japan. This trip really shows how Kyoto is in many ways the Japanese equivalent of D.C. in the US because it has so many historic locations and because, as this day taught me, it is host to a great many school field trips.

東京も京都もすきです。でも、私は京都の方が好きです。京都はきれいなので、そこに行くのが好きです。

日九

This day was our trip to Nara and all the fun that implies. Of course to anyone who knows much about the country Nara will bring to mind the concept of deer. The reason for this being that the very large and extremely famous Buddhist temple in Nara regards the deer as sacred which means that the deer are allowed to roam freely throughout the city. The simple rule to follow is that the deer are allowed to mess with you but you are not allowed to mess with the deer. This makes for some very sot so shy deer who will be quite happy with steeling any food you make the mistake of trying to eat in front of them. They can steel your food but you can’t (and probably don’t want to steel it back. Said temple is Toda-ji the home of the Daibutsu the largest bronze statue of Buddha in the world. The temple itself has its own record as the largest wooden building in the world.

奈良の鹿はかわいいです。そして、多い鹿は怖いです。奈良の寺は大きです。住職はとても賑やかですね！