Got up the next day… at 6 am to go to a famous street. 

Kiyomizu-dera shrine on a cliff! Amazing view!  Very tired though.   There was a historic street as well that had almost no people on it. The shops were all closed, but it was nice not to be in the crowds. 

We found a cafe and had a little breakfast while we waited for the next place to open.

We went through the next temple just to get to the bamboo forest at the end! So many steps. Our legs are a bit shot from all the steps from the last few days.  We’ve been averaging 15k-20k steps a day, not counting stairs. 

The bamboo forest was beautiful! The bamboo all had different pitches when you knocked on it. 

I also learned that some structures in Japan have spout chains instead of spouts. This is more decorative and makes a nice trickling noise. 

We found our way to a train to Nara. A family almost took our cab to the train station and we were running after it yelling! lol.

We got to town and found our lunch at a nice sashimi place we had the best fatty tuna bowls of our lives!  Really tender, like butter. 

Walked around more and found a mochi place that made it in front of you. 

We walked to deer park and Ben fed the deer as they chased him around the park.  The more gentle ones actually bow before you feed them!  So adorable! They are tiny deer too compared to the ones back home. 

We walked further to the temple which houses one of the  largest Buddha statues at 49 feet tall!  The shrine that houses it was the largest wooden structure, too!  It’s since been surpassed, but it’s huge!  

We took a train to Okinawa to check out some food for dinner!  Had some octopus balls called tapenyaki. Skillet food for dinner like a pancake but different.  Some gyoza and we polished off an entire Japanese cheesecake, that was more like bread pudding than a cheesecake which was fine by me!  

We took a few long trains back to Kyoto and passed out after a long day.