NOTE: I will be updating photo details later!!!!
27 April 2023 - Welcome dinner with Geisha dancers last night, 8 hour tour day and I learned so much. Visited the city of Nara to see the Kasugu Shrine, Nara Park, lots of sacred deer (no venison to eat!), and the huge Todai-ji Buddhist Temple which is the largest wooden structure in the world. It was first built in 710-794 AD at the behest of Emporer Shomu. The chief object of worship is Vairocana Buddha - cast from bronze, ("Buddha that shines throughout the world like the sun") his magnificent temple was built. The Great Buddha Hall was burned in fires of war in 1180 and 1567 and the current one is the 3rd generation building. And the deer - all over the place and happy to meet us and our tour guide said they are "pets" not deer in the wild. We learned about Samurai warriors who "came to help" and guard the Royal Family.
Rent in Osaka is about $7,000/month. Tour guides are very happy to have tourists back as they had no work and our trip had been cancelled 2 years in a row due to Covid closing. Talking with Japanese works well with "agreement" not "discussion"😁. A lot of Osaka was destroyed in WWII.
So far so good and we had a required PCR test to be ready to get on our "small ship" Friday for 8 nights - all good so far!
Tomorrow is a new adventure! I need to watch the movie Shogun!
28 April 2023 in Japan - Visited a Temple, a Shrine, a Garden, took drum lessons, walked through a cemetery (my absolute favorite travel thing - true!!!), Golden Pavilion, the National Treasure Sanjusangen-do temple and learned a lot!!! Time now to rest and read a at 9pm. This trip is one in a million😘 - updated a bit today from what I learned- It's Saturday! Drum lessons are Taiko, Temple is Buddhist Sanjusangen-do, Golden Pavilion is 600 years old which was rebuilt in 1950 after it was burned in arson by an angry monk in training and reconsecrated in 1955. For Zen meditation with incense do 20 minutes and "live for today and don't worry about past and future and all worries disappear and think about a happy thing". 🥰. To wear a Japanese kimono wear left side over right side however if you are dead it is put on right over left! Cremated people are buried 49 days after funeral. In 794 Tokyo was capital for 1000 years and Tokyo has been the capital city for 150 years.When asked why all the vehicles were so spotless, shiny and clean it is due to Shintoism and cleanliness keeps evil spirits from entering. So we saw lots and lots of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. Now off to the next day adventure!
Deer are sacred in Japan and especially these and you need to bow to the deer when you meet them - I often forgot as the deer were all over the place!
We have been doing lots of steps of different sizes - depends on the site - so far so good for a 76 and 80 year old!
This is not really a cemetery but it is a memorial - still haven't quite figured it out but apparently very expensive to put a memorial here.
More steps to the temple but not bad - could be worse as we say in Minnesota!
This huge tree is about 100 years old and growing through the roof of this building - hmmmm - interesting right?
Red side is men black side is women and if you look at the 3 numbers they are ages when you can expect to have bad fortune or bad luck. I need to try and remember myself at 17, 42 and 61 years old and look back at what happened - at least I'm not dead!
I am really missing my daily vacation ice cream as it's not served or seen much here. I'm patiently waiting to get on the Ponant Le Soleal small ship tonight as they always have had ice cream. Biggest tour ever with Tauck - 200 people but this trip was cancelled twice for the covid closures and everyone we've talked to has been rescheduled twice just like us. They do divide us into much smaller groups and I think we have about 30 and the Ritz Carlton where we are is one of 3 hotels so they have a total of 6 tour directors. I think the boat holds about 200 so it will be all Tauck. Since Ponant is a French company we are kind of used to half French or so passengers. Tauck does things very well and that is why this is our 16th trip with them and it's still a family owned company and treat their employees well.
They told us not to hold food unless we want to get followed but I do understand this guy on our tour wanting to try the green tea ice cream.
Women's restroom entrance in Nara Japan.
Train station stop in Kyoto. There are no trash cans and no trash on the ground around and you need to bring a bag or something to take your food waste or trash back to you place.
I am always amazed at the hundred of wires and electrical stuff at every corner. Definitely a tech world.
Teiko drumming lessons and it was so darn much fun and I felt like a Samurai warrior!
This is a real cemetery and apparently very very expensive to be buried in Japan. I need to do a little research on the customs of this topic.
That's Ross down the steps from me and we are doing great and not one person in our group has fallen - YET!!!
This is a chozubachi which holds water to wash your left and right hands, then mouth and then ladle to purify themselves before entering a Shinto shrine.
We "cooked our own" lunch - beef and pork dipping in a little boiling pot and we each had our own and this sauce was delicious and a mixture of lemon and soy. I need to make that at home! And they did have chicken nuggets and fries on the buffet which I of course took but found out later they were cooked but cold and you were supposed to dip them in the hot pot fryer to heat them for 30 seconds - oh well - live and learn from travelling the world right??
Golden Temple - so beautiful and peaceful and amazing views.
This is a Shinto shrine and you bow your head, put your hands together, pray for goodness, bow again and toss in a coin.
Hard to see little tiny shrine in the middle of the photo.
And the one next to me, Felicia, noticed the first day that we both liked striped shirts. Ross says I have 80 of them and I try to break the habit and it's impossible. Two sisters travelling together from Arizona and Idaho and they said I could be their sister. Since I'm the chatty one Ross gets to hang out with lots of women.
OK - so this is one person on the tour not a young person - who had a different hat every day and someone asks her how she packs them and she has 2 "hat boxes" as luggage. And her shoes are another story. High heeled sandals with no back strap and pretty soon on the walks her husband is stuck putting her shoes in the bag he gets to carry and she puts on sneakers!
Another day, another hat and fancy shoes and her hubby is the Shoe Carrier!!!
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