One more reminder about the SALE (free shipping to anywhere!!) at
until May 17.
Here's Mikey looking at a HUGE wooden Buddha in Nara. We drove about five hours to get to Nara and drove eight hours to get home... figure that one out. You can't? The math makes perfect sense if you are me and you continually get lost in Nagoya which happens to be on the way to Nara. There are very few things which will make me lose my cool. One is computers. The other is trying to follow Japanese road signs. They make NO SENSE. They label things which aren't on my map and tell me to turn right when there isn't a road to turn right on. IT MAKES ME CRAZY.
Anyway, my craziness was SO worth it. We got to see amazing things this weekend in Nara. One was the sweet Buddha you see above. It is sitting next to the biggest Buddha in the world which, for no apparent reason, I didn't photograph. Oh well. At least we get a nice view of the side of Mikey's lovely head.
The hole that this kid is climbing through is the size of the nostril of the largest Buddha in the world (in Todaiji Temple). I heard that if you can climb through it you will have good luck. Talk about a reason to go on a diet! Or not.
Friend: Oh, you're on a diet!
Other Friend: Yea, I was inspired to do so in Nara.
Friend: Nara? Where the heck is that?
Other Friend: It's in Asia somewhere.
Friend: And the diet?
Other Friend: I want to be able to crawl through Buddha's nostril.
Friend: Oh.....
If you want to feed reindeer, go to Nara. I think this is where Santa hires his buddies: Dasher, Dancer, and company.
Here we have a Santa in training.
Have you heard of Love Hotels? They fill the need of couples who actually want to have sex in Japan. Many people live with their extended families, sharing one house with sometimes literally, paper-thin walls. If they feel the urge, all they have to do is drive up to this oh-so-sexy love hotel (Flower Style!) and check in anonymously.
We didn't stay in a Love Hotel, as tempting as it was. We slept in our car. Other than being afraid that we would get in trouble, it was quite comfortable and totally on the budget side of travel. Don't laugh. We really did think it was comfortable. Honest.
Anyway, here I am in what I like to think of as a transitional outfit. I am not really still in PJ's but I am not quite presentable in public yet.
Finally, SUPER BURGER! Of course, I am pretending that it is made of soy even though it probably says beef or pork in Japanese (the bliss of ignorance). Anyway, have you seen lettuce this amazing? It's practically flying into my mouth!
But what did we really eat this weekend in the oldest capital of Japan? Indian food and European-inspired picnics (bread, cheese and tomatoes...) I must say, however, Japan has the BEST road snacks. Being able to buy fresh sushi at any convenience store is truly magic. Sweet potato chips? Burdock root chips? Pepper flavored rice crackers?
It's not that I don't like Japanese restaurants, I just can't pass up genuine Indian food. The kitchen staff didn't even speak Japanese! They spoke in their own language (Hindi? I didn't ask) to each other and in English to the Japanese servers.
Anyway, I get enough genuine Japanese food for school lunches (Today's menu: Bread, Jam, soup, tofu salad, and some strange mixture of cabbage and meat bits that I picked out. Oh and milk too. Mmmmm...) I wonder what Mikel ate at our other school today.
1 comment:
Ahh... school lunch. It is a daily mystery. Today was a brothy tofu soup (and a student who does not like tofu gave me hers, which was great) and a rectangular chunk of egg and some sort of meat that I ate but dodged the visible meat chunks. oh yeah, and a tasty seaweed salad. and as always, an ice cold bottle of milk straight out of 1950s americana.
(Sidenote- My nostrils are totally Buddha-like. So big I could definitely fit kids in them.)
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