Day 64 - Last Day

Woke up and got going a little late this morning. Managed to find the bus stop, though seconds too late. Got back to Oosaka, but too late to catch the connecting train. Went anyway, and managed to talk with an attendant. We somehow managed to understand each other enough to get me and Tamarra on the next train. I was really nervous though, even when we got on the train, that they'd kick us off next station because it's all reserved seats. But they didn't. Whooooo!

Made it to Ise very early this morning. Thankfully, the good weather was holding. We first went to the outer shrine of Ise-Jingu, and spent some time there. I'm really in love with the Japanese style shrines and temples. All the woodwork is so detailed and intricate, even on the outsides of buildings.

Found our way to the Inner shrine next, and despite the misleading name, it's actually about 15 minutes away from the outer shrine, and not inside it. The grounds here were beautiful. We crossed this bridge to get in, and it seems they rebuilding the bridge, outer shrine main building, and inner shrine main buildings every 20 years. Unfortunately for us, this year is the one they're still building, and will actually reveal the new ones next year. Oh well. It was still a lovely sight. Started raining though, as we were leaving.

Caught a bus to out next destination, which was a good ways away. Found our way to the shore of Japan (first time seeing actual beach!), where there's the shrine to Izanami and Izanagi, the creator-sibling gods of Japan. Called Meotoiwa, the shrine represents the gods as a pair of rocks in the ocean, tied together with a rope. Sounds really podunk when I write it like that. It's actually very beautiful in person. Here:

After that we found some food in the aquarium shopping center nearby. Hadn't actually eating anything til that point, and it had been at least seven hours since we woke up. I was crabby. And did not want to eat crab. Haha. So we headed back to the station and off to Nara.

Oh Nara. We got there later than expected, of course. Stupid mix up with the trains. But Nara. It's known for it's great wealth of temples, being home to the largest wooden building in the world, which happens to house the largest bronze buddha statue in the world. Oh, and there's also the deer. Sooooo many deer. And even though they're wild, they're tame enough and used to humans enough that I walked right up to one and pet it. It was amazing.

The Todaiji, the wooden building with the buddha in it I mentioned was closed by the time we got there. Of course. Like everything… But I got a beautiful almost-sunset shot of it. All in all, it was lovely.

Then it was time to return home. Hopped a train to Kyoto, where we picked up the bus back to Tokyo. This bus was much nicer than the first one, though I will always feel too big for Japanese seats. And that's pretty much it. I did take a lot more photos than this, but don't really want to post all of them…