The fourteenth was our last day before the move, and I had to edit my last post, so I didn't get a chance to do one for that day.
The fifteenth was our night in the Ryokan, and there was no internet there, so I couldn't do a post that night either.
Today is the sixteenth, so I am trying to do a triple post.
The 14th: Nagoya with Taylor
We went to see Nagoya with Taylor. Matt met him through some videos that he did about in Japan. Taylor is an English teacher in Japan.
We went to the Atsuta temple in Nagoya. It was quite nice, although smaller than most of the temples we've been to thus far.
We also went to Tokugawa Art Museum and park. The park was very nice. It featured a pond and several streams, one of which had a really awesome rock bridge through it.
Kids playing with the fishes.
The museum itself was pretty good as well, although no pictures were allowed, so there isn't much to show here. It contained numerous swords, a few sets of armour, several scrolls, and not a lot of English.
Afterwards, Taylor brought us to a curry restaurant called CoCo. The food was good, and it has the honour of being the most multilingual so far; boasting a menu in six languages. [English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, and Japanese]
Day 15: Our night in Ohara
Day 15 marked our stay in a Ryokan. It was very nice, although I was not feeling great that day, so I couldn't enjoy it to the fullest. But anyways, Ohara is a small mountain town; it seemed to have one main road that sloped up the mountain. The trees there were beautiful, and the view was great.
The view from our room. Fantastic.
We visited a shrine in our short time there. It had impressive gardens, and an extraordinary number of stamps available. In Japan, many attractions have stamps that you can collect in stamp books or on paper to document your travels. Unfortunately, we didn't have any paper on us, as there were 6 stamps available for collection. To give some comparison, the next highest number we'd seen in one place was Osaka Castle with 3, and it only had that many because it was the 80th anniversary of the castle.
The shrine also held an incredible number of Buddhas. This is a shelf full of them, some with prayer beads around them, most undecorated. Those numbers on the shelf do not exaggerate; there are over 15,000 Buddhas there.
The Ryokan also provided traditional Japanese garb for its visitors.
As well as a five course dinner. This was the final course. I was mostly full by the second course, as I was still sickly and my appetite was lacking, but I tried a bit of everything.
The Ryokan also had some very impressive decorations.
Day 16: Ohara to Tokyo
The next day, we were provided an equally impressive breakfast. It was only one massive course.
I should also mention the baths there. Japanese bathing is different from Western bathing. Cleaning is done separately from the bath in Japan, so no soap should ever go into the bath; it is only for relaxing. It is also very hot, usually at least 40ºc.
They boasted 3 baths there, an outdoor one, one in a cave, and one without anything fancy about it. We tried the two more interesting ones; they were great.
On arriving in Tokyo, we found our hostel and are settling in. We explored the local area a bit, and found a few things of interest.
Matt posing next to some statues.
Some nice text on a shoehorn at the hostel. Don't you wish your shoehorn was that cool?
We couldn't find a convience store at first, so we had dinner at an Indian restaurant. My appetite is still not what it once was, so I only ordered a garlic naan. It turned out to be huge, but I still finished it.
Now that we're all settled, our posts will probably be more reliable; but two moves in two days makes it hard to update on time.
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