Day 8 July 1

We had a lovely day today but very tiring and long. We went to meet with Chihiro who was an exchange student we hosted 6 years ago. It took three trains to get there and she took us to a local restaurant for lunch. Lucky she was there to help us order as we didn’t know what anything was. It was all very nice though. Gerard and I had a spicy udon noodle bowl which was served cold which surprised us a bit but it was very nice! Chihiro was very happy we met with her and she gave us all a little letter that she had written for each of us.

Then we caught some trains and got to Nara. They have a lovely park land with many, many tame deer roaming. We saw the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) at Nara’s Todai-ji Temple. The bronze Buddha is 16 metres high and weighs 500 tonnes. It is housed inside the largest wooden building in the world that dates back to 798. It was very impressive!

I dont know how many trains and busses we caught today, but it was a lot! We went back to Osaka and found an almost vegan restaurant for dinner. Then back on the train again to see the lit up streets of Osaka.

This was a knife shop in Nara where I bought a beautiful handmade knife.

Tess managed to find a vegan black sesame ice cream. It was a bit nicer than the tofu skin ice-cream we had the other day.

Many people dress up in kimonos to visit the shrines and temples.

Day 7 June 30

Not much to write about today as we travelled by JR Train to Osaka. It was only a short trip but pretty wet when we got there and it was too early for check-in so we dumped our cases at the hotel and went to a very long arcade with hundreds of restaurants for lunch. Tara and I did a Tacoyaki cooking course then we met up again and had a bit of a look through the shops. We then found a lovely Italian restaurant for dinner – good wood fired pizzas, quite a pleasant change from all the Japanese food we have been having and a good chance to practice our knife and fork skills again! We also managed to get a bottle of Italian wine – our first wine on the trip!

But now let me tell you about the toilets! The Japanese toilets are worth writing about.

Even the public toilets have bells and whistles of all kinds. There are two wash buttons – front and back bottoms, automatic lid lifting and flushing, and some even have a massage button (using different water pressures)! There is a privacy button that plays music or flowing water sounds to disguise any sounds you might need to make in the toilet. They often light up and automatically lightly spray the bowl with water before you start – we are guessing so nothing sticks to the bowl. Not sure I am a fan of the heated seats in summer though!