Nara

Ok, I know that this is super late, but let's pretend it's still the beginning of May and I am still living it up in Japan.So the cherry blossoms have come again this spring to Japan and the IES gang and I went to Nara and Yoshino (one of the most historically filled towns and one of the nicest Sakura viewing places in Japan).
This is a two day weekend trip so we actually hit up the big spots in Nara before heading over to our Yoshino ryokan (Japanese inn).We met up at Daiichi Fuji Hotel (the place we met up when we first got to Japan and for a lot of our trips) by Nagoya Eki (Station) in the early morning for our nice bus ride!
Our first stop was this nice temples where we had traditional tea and lunch. It was a very nice and we all had the great privilege of eating purple rice! It was all very tasty, I wish I had some now!
We then went to the famous Nara Kouen! (Nara Park)!It is the site of the largest wooden house (anywhere) and the largest indoor Buddha!
Inside the gates is a very nice layout leading up to the house, with ponds, grass, and, once again, deer! (>.<) Let's just say I don't like deer very much. Especially these pushy ones! First we enter through the gates which have their ah and om guardians. The first indicator of grandeur. Gigantic! So We make our way up to the house and It. Is. HUGE! It's crazy big!! I then enter the temple directly in front of The huge Buddha (Daibutsu= Big Buddha)! It's realllllly big and you can walk all the way around him!!!! There are guardians inside surrounding him, which are also huge. I'm surprised that such a famous place also functions as a temple as well. It's really interesting. You can buy amulets on the way out as well as stamp your "I've been all over Japan" stamp book. There was a miniature of the whole building in there which I really liked. It was really intricate and I bet it was handmade! I took a picture of my hand by a butterfly sculpture at the right side of the Daibutsu for reference if you didn't believe me! Which would be pretty to scale w/ the Daibutsu. So there you go doubters! There was a big pillar with a square hole cut out of it, that if you pass through you would get good luck. One of the older gentleman standing around suggested it to me, but knowing my hip measurements, I decided to forgo getting stuck in a wooden hole. My other friends went through though, which I'm glad about: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100286280613244&subj=571501666I accidentally left the house without obtaining my stamps, so I promptly returned (through the exit)and ran into my friend from Pitt, Corey!! He was living in Kobe and had suddenly decided to visit Nara Kooen with his host-parents! It was totally guuzen(coincidence)! His parents really wanted to meet me and had invited me to visit them in Kobe, but I couldn't. I was really happy that it worked out! The deer are highly loved in Japan and at the Kooen, they actually sell crackers to feed the deer. Corey's host-father bought some for us to give to the deer. But as drivers in the Northeast (Drivers in the NE dislike deer) we declined. The deer, however, were not put off by that fact that I held no food. One cheeky one snuck up on me and bit me right in the buttocks! Needless to say, I turned around in outrage ready to hit whoever had pinched my butt, only to be surprised by those huge deer eyes right looking up at me~!! So, I made a weird sound and ran behind Corey's host mom. Next: Yoshino