And then God said, "Let there be snow!"

"Hello, I am a cute little deers and I would like some of your nummy foods."  I'm sure that what this guy would have said if he wasn't so busy biting at Melissa's legs.  We'll get to them later though.

Today we woke up bright and early to catch the 5:30 local train to Shinagawa, which would allow us to transfer onto the Shinkansen Hikari (bullet train) to Kyoto.  The ride was approximately 3 1/2 hours long, with intermittent stops along the way.

At first I would have assumed today to be a great weather day.  Cruising along at 167 mph, the warm sun shone through bright enough to warrant taking your jacket off, while a mist steadily lifted from the mountainside.  Sadly, Mt. Fuji was covered by distant clouds - but there shall be other days.

For the most part the four of us slept on-and-off until we arrived at Kyoto station, where we would then transfer on towards Nara.  At the station I bought the most wonderful chocolate and almond bread twist.  If there was one thing the Japanese are good at it's pastries.  Well, pastries and putting cute faces on inanimate objects.



Due to a flood of tourists and elderly Japanese Melissa and I were unable to find a seat on the Nara express which left us standing for the hour long trip.  The train to Nara is one of the crazier ones that we have to ride on and not because it's overly full, but mostly due to the fact that it weaves in and out of residential areas, sometimes only a few feet from the back door of the houses. 

Along the way you can watch children at local parks kicking around soccer balls, older gentlemen toiling in their farms and workers harvesting bamboo.  Just like America, the life of country folk seem starkly in contrast to their city counterparts, yet I feel that country living in Japan doesn't include the same hillbilly stigma.

From small station to small station we eventually pulled into Nara, the ancient capital of Japan, which just so happened to be celebrating it's 1300 anniversary.  I'm not sure how large of a town Nara is, but it seemed to have a simple charm that set it apart from the business found in the city.  The buildings are all shorter, the people walk slower, and things look greener.  It's definitely a fresh change of pace after spending the past few days in one of the most crowded places on Earth.

Upon exiting the station we headed towards the big show of the city, Nara Park.  Inside of the park are several five story pagodas, temples and "wild" deer that wonder the park, waiting to be fed.  Shortly after arriving at one said pagodas, surrounded by deer, we had our first surprise of the day - hail!  Yep, the warm, comforting sun, which we have sorely been missing for the past few days, was being eaten away by bombarding balls of ice.

Thankfully, as if often the case, the hail didn't last for long.  No, instead it was simply replaced with a light rain, which forced us in and out of the small shops dotting the way towards the Todaiji.  The shops were mostly your standard fare of knickknacks, trinkets and dull samurai swords - nothing overly special, but at least you would know exactly where it came from first look.

With shops out of the way we finally made it to the Todaiji Temple, the largest wooden building in the world, and home of the Daibutsu (Great Buddah).  Pictures don't seem to do the statue much justice, as it is amazingly hard to get the sheer scale in a photo, so here are a few stats: It is 98 feet tall, with a 17 foot wide head and 3 foot wide eyes.  It's total weight is 500 metric tons, which is 1,102,311 lbs.  Yeah, that's right, over a million lbs of copper and gold.  As a whole, let's just say it's big.

I think Josh put it best, "you can only stare at a statue for so long," and with that we started to make our way back to the Nara train station.  Along the way we stopped by one of the ubiquitous "claw machine" arcades where Randi one a super-cute stuffed bear and I won a gloomy bear paw used to hold your train pass. 

Prizes though would be little consolation through for what met us when we arrived a Kyoto station.  At the platform a frozen wind cut into our faces, forcing our eyes to water as we shivered in wait.  As the wind increased Melissa pointed to the sky to announce that it was now snowing. 

Last year our pictures from Nara show me wearing a t-shirt, hanging out in the sun with some deer.  This year, we're freezing with snow in the back ground.  Go figure.

To see the pictures from yesterday - click here.
To see the pictures from today - click here.