Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
So I moaned about the rain.. I'll try and not moan about the stifling 34 degree heat we had today despite the fact we nearly melted. More on that later!
After an early start today, we headed from Kyoto to Nara which is one of the oldest cities in the World by way of another irritatingly punctual train. If the ones at home ran this well, I'd probably still be trying to catch up on 5 years of missed lectures at uni! Anyway.. On arrival at Nara we hired a locker the size of a small container port to keep our luggage in an headed literally for the hills. The weather as stated earlier had turned from wet to scorching, and as a result we began our ritual of continual liquid purchases. As practically every street corner houses a vending machine, this thankfully wasn't a problem, but as most of them sold the Sweat stuff referred to yesterday, the taste was not always what we were looking for!
Nara park and its 1,000 deer were the first stop and after sucessfully avoiding being sold biscuits from the band of old women who sold treats for the deer, we arrived at Todai-ji. As the Worlds largest wooden building it was in intself awesome, but considering that hiding inside was the worlds largest bronze Buddha, this was quite a place! Walking back to the station with fan in hand and bottle of juice in the other, I think we lost about 2 stone between us. Despite this, some show off men were still offering rickshaw rides!
Onwards to Himeji castle where we found 'the finest example of a Samurai castle in existence'. Agreed. Best one we have ever seen from around a total of 1. Another cracker which was crazily built on a hilltop. I know security was an issue back in the day, but these guys should have thought about the long term.. Disabled access and visitor escalators were really lacking!
Finishing up there we headed back to the station to catch our first bullet train of our journey. On our way we passed some very odd rock 'n roll dancers who put on a show (see video!). The train ride was incredible as by the time you pointed something out to each other it was invariably gone.. Hey ho! Hiroshima soon arrived and once again we await what tomorrow may bring!
Over and out..
L & A
- comments