Back from mount koya!

what a great experience that was...to live a night in a temple and then....getting up for a 6am buddhist prayer feast! ahahaha. liz and i went to osaka for the day and went shopping in a store called "comme ca" which is like a department store with different floors equivalent to "old navy" and "gap"...man we had fun in that store. plus we looked at different cameras for my sister, and we sent her an email with attachments of the pictures, and hopefully AMES will write back...hahahah.

rode on a 2 hr train ride to mount koya and looked at the gorgeous scenery of rural japan (although it was raining all day, but that's ok...rain is fun!) the temple people are gracious and hilarious! i have pictures of the futons we slept on, and the very fluffy comforters that were on top...i mused about whether the staff would notice if i left with one of their comforters...but decided that it would be too noticable, and plus, it's quite large....

we had an incredible amount of vegetarian food for dinner and breakfast (more for dinner) and we chatted for just over 2 hrs...what a great meal! what a great experience!

checked out some temples and gravestones as okunoin-mae and it was really cool with the fog in the morning (well, we were up at 6am, so it didn't make sense to go back to sleep...) then we went back to namba (south part of osaka) and took a train to nara!

nara is a touristy place known for it's run of deer and of course, the big buddha. it totally reminds me of the deer park in marineland, same deal. i spent an exorbitant amount of money on souvenirs in nara...oh man, the stores totally sucked money out of me like there was no tomorrow. yes, we visited some temples like the famous todaiji temple (with the large buddha...there's this pole that has a hole cut in the bottom, the size of the big buddha's nose and little kids like to go through it...liz did it last time and she fit through it....however, this time ....no can do!) we also took a look about turtle lake, which is basically a large lake with tons of turtles in it....this is where i got hit on by this guy while liz was playing with a turtle...hahahaha...he kept asking me if i was japanese and where i was from...it was quite funny!

the best part is that everywhere liz and i go, people always assume that i'm japanese and turn to me when they speak. i always smile, nod and give a blank/surprised stare. liz on the other hand, is my translator and somehow, no one seems to believe that she can speak japanese, and continues speaking to me, even though i CLEARLY cannot understand what they're saying....irritating...but understandable...

anyway, japan is sucking me dry...and it's only been 5 days....i learned a couple new words..."gomenasai" means i'm sorry, "kawai" means cute (remember, everything is cute here...) and "wakannai" means i don't know.

oh yeh, grace i saw those charms you were asking about today...sorry i didn't know earlier, but i hear they're all over the place so yeh i'll look one up...exams are cute! hahaha.