More To Explore

The above and below images are from Nara where we spent last Sunday. We met again at Sannomiya on Saturday night, after I finished work and then went back to Steven and Nabuko's, where Nabuuko had prepared a delicious Japanese style curry for us. We were up early on Sunday to go to Nara and we headed straight for the Todai-Ji Temple(above) with it's enormous Buddha. On the way we stopped to feed the deer, which are all over the place, they are the symbol of Nara so are protected and spoiled! The temple is amazing, it's absolutely huge and the statue is equally impressive.

After we had seen it we walked around some more of the area and admired the stone lanterns and some other temple buildings.



On Monday we took the cable car up Mt Rokko near Kobe. At the top we took the ropeway across to Arima which is a hotspring resort. We used the free footbath outside the main onsen and had a wander around the town which was quite picturesque. I particularly enjoyed the biscuit makers. The smells coming out were great and so were the samples! :)

After we left Arima we went to Minoh where there is a waterfall. On the way up there were also some monkeys running around so that was cool. The funniest coincidence happened on the way up to the waterfall. I was walking along and I saw a tall western guy walking towards me and low and behold it was my training buddy John! I must know all of five people in the whole of Japan and I bump into one of them in the middle of nowhere. Small world! Here's a pic of the 'rents by the waterfall.



On our way back down from the waterfall we again encountered the monkeys but this time there were loads of them and they allowed us to get up pretty close to them, especially this little guy.



Unfortunately the ones with babies stayed a little further away so I tried to get some shots with my big camera but I won't know if they worked until I get those rolls developed.

Off to work now, will write about this most recent weekend tonight I hope.