Oct. 3rd

Today was really fun, Hiroko and her family took Braden and I to the city of Nara, the old capital, and showed us some of the major monuments there. We walked through the park, which is just chock FULL of deer, and all the deer are completely used to humans, and they just come right up to you hoping you have some deer food, which you can buy from various vendors throughout the park. And when you DO get some food, boy do they get excited! They come up to you in hordes and try to nip and tug and your clothes, hoping to get some food from you, and its really funny, esp if there are lots of them. It feels like they wanna eat YOU they way they keep tugging at your clothes, lol. After that we went to the Buddhist temple there, and they have the biggest Buddha statue in the WORLD, and I think its the biggest wooden statue in the world period, its HUGE. They have tons of other sculptures and stuff there too. One of the pillars inside the Temple has a hole in it, the same size as the Buddha`s nostril, and kids can climb through it and it`s supposed to bring them happiness. There were also several young women going through it too, so Hiroko told me to give it a try and I fit, so I guess that means I`ll have a happy time in Japan! After visiting the temple we went to a famous Shinto Shrine in the same area. There were gardens and beautiful lanterns everywhere, and there was a wedding going on so you could occasionally here the priests ringing the gong and playing the flute and other instruments. It was all very neat. After visiting all these monuments, we traveled back to Shiga (it was about 2 hours from Shiga I think) and we stopped in a large multi storied department store for some ice cream and ingredients for dinner. It was a really big store, and there were lots of people, but Braden and I were seriously the ONLY white people there, it was funny. Its surprising sometimes to see the difference in diversity between Seattle and Shiga, whereas in Seattle its hard to stick out, in Shiga we stuck out like sore thumbs! It wasn`t like that in Nara though, cause there were lots of foreign tourists. I`m glad we got to tour the grounds with a nice japanese family though, it made the experience all the more special. Right now I`m kneeling in Hiroko`s living room, while the family prepares some Miso soup, salad, and croquettes for dinner. Then we gotta turn in, cause we gotta wake up early to catch the early train tomorrow.