Vacation!

Recently we were blessed with the opportunity to take a vacation and explore this great country we are living in.  We decided to ride the shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto and Nara.

Kyoto was once the capital of Japan and has over 3,000 Shinto and Buddist temples.  The city is considered a UNESCO site.  Riding the city bus is like taking a guided tour as it points out fun historic facts about each temple you pass.  We stayed in the guest room of one of the Lutheran churches.

Giant Budda at Todai-ji Temple

We spent a lot of time walking around the much quieter city of Kyoto.  We visited Ginkaku-ji (Silver temple), Nijo-jo Castle, and Kinkaku-ji (Gold Temple).  We walked the Philosopher's path and visited the many temples/shrines and shops.

A couple junior high groups came up to us to practice their English.  They were adorable.  The kids were very shy and nervous as they read the questions from their notebooks.  After we answered them in English, we impressed them with our minimal Japanese skills.  There are not very many teens in the church, so we welcomed the opportunity to interact with these bright young people.

Kinkaku-ji (Golden) Temple

We were very impressed with the many Japanese students we saw. They all seemed very well behaved.  All students wear uniforms.  Their teacher or guide would lead them by holding a flag with their group number.  I was impressed because there would be about 30 students and only 3 teachers!  If I had tried that with my youth group back home it would have been chaos.

After our adventure in Kyoto, we rode the train to Nara.  We stayed in the historic Nara Hotel where famous people like Helen Keller and Albert Einstein have also stayed.  Nara has "tame" wild deer that you can feed and pet.  We spent a large part of our time there feeding deer and sitting in the park (and eating ice cream everyday).  We also visited Todai-ji Temple which has a giant Budda. The temples and buildings are so impressive.

We very much enjoyed our relaxing get away from the big city.

Nara Hotel

Pastor Erik and his new herd.

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