We had a much needed sleep in today. Well, given how hard the mattress and pillow were, and all the noise outside our room, it wasn’t really sleep – but it was rest, nonetheless. We had breakfast at 9 and I went back to bed a bit longer.
We eventually got up and went to Toji shrine. It was beautiful with all the cherry blossoms and the 5 tier pegoda. We had a good look around and grabandbed some lunch at a cafe, before going to mum and dad’s room about 115. Aunty Linda and Uncle Owen were already in there so we had a chat and then went downstairs to do our 140 tour of Nara.
It was about an 80 minute bus trip, on which the tour director (apparently) never stopped talking. Dad was the only one of us who didn’t sleep. In Nara we were told that the deer are wild but friendly and that we can feed them if we want. We walked around the Todaiji Temple – the home of the largest Buddha in Japan. We walked around the grounds for a bit and then went to Kasuga shrine for more walking and sight seeing. Back on the bus we went to the souvenir shop for 15 minutes and then the bus brought us back to kyoto.
We arrived back just after 6, but dinner was booked for 8 as our eta was 730. So Kaoru and I went to mum and dad’s room for some sake and a chat. We knocked on Aunty Linda and Uncle Owen’s door and got to the restaurant about 7.40 hoping they would seat us early. They were very busy so we had to wait a bit, but were in before 8, nonetheless.
Tonights dinner was Kushiage – kind of like a shabu shabu (where you cook your self) but it was deep fried food. So basically we went to a bar and picked a number of skewers, ranging from pork, to salmon to cheese, then dipped them in batter, covered them in breadcrumbs, and then cooked them in a deep frier in the middle of the table. Delicious! We took the drink package too, so for an extra 1000 yen we had unlimited drinks. For dessert they had a chocolate fountain, with marshmallows, pefiterolls, ice cream….it was hard to know what to have next!
After dinner we said goodbye to Mum and Dad, and Aunty Linda and Uncle Owen, as we wouldn’t be seeing them again until back in Australia. We walked back to our hotel in the cold, and turned the heating right up in our room when we got back to defrost!