Day 26 (SAT)

Today we again made our way to Nara, this time to the city proper. We were joined by a new Japanese student named Nami. Our schedule had us going to three different temples, but the first one nobody want to actually go into, we spent too much time petting the deer, 

then we lost half the group to Namba, so we skipped the next shrine and went straight to Todaiji. 

The is a legend that anyone who could make their way though this tiny hole would gain happiness: 

All three of us made it through. 

It was pretty cool, and it would have been nice to explore the grounds more, but Myra and I were on schedule, so we split from the group and went looking for a quick lunch before catching the train. The bakery I wanted to curry pan at was right next to the station, so Myra thought it might be better to look a little further away. Right next to the bakery was a shopping street, so we went do that. We ended up spending like an hour in a used kimono store, where we bought way to much stuff for great prices. My theory is that the Japanese just aren't generally interested in second hand stuff. 

We had been planning to go to what we call the 'waterfall park', but it closed at 5 and it was an hour train ride away, so with the time we spent shopping, then finding trains, we couldn't make it. So instead we went to Nabari. It took us about two hours to get there, so we couldn't spend much time there. Since we didn't actually know what there was to do in Nabari, we just walked towards the mountains. 

This turned out to be a good idea. We saw dozens of tiny froggies! They hung around the rice patties and jumped around the sidewalk and into the water. The scenery was really pretty, and the air so humid that we could feel it weighing down on us. I really liked the frogs too. 

After a delightful hour in Nabari, we made our two hour journey home. We got back early enough for me to make a curry soup that actually turned out pretty good. 
It was a fun day.