Sooo, today proved to be a very interesting one! We decided to take in another couple of temple tours on the other side of Kyoto in the mountain area. We got on the train to get there and it just kept on goin! I assured Dennis it was OK, there's always another train! It ended up going about 4 stops past where we needed to get off! There is a difference, turns out, between the local and express trains! We figured out where we needed to go and got on the correct train and made our way back to Nara. The temple there is the one you always see with all the orange and black tori gates!!! Like a bazillion of the things and I think we walked under all of them. Dennis was looking for a geocache and we went off on some long trail through a bamboo forest with mosquitoes eating us alive. What fun! I was not a happy camper. So we turned around and back tracked about a mile and figured out which path we needed to take - all UPHILL under those toris! My legs still have not recovered from Fuji and my knee hurt but we found the cache and Dennis was satisfied. We made our way back - 3 HOURS later! By then we were tired and hungry and we passed a bunch of teeny shops. One had Bar-B-Q out front with some old Japanese lady cooking. It looked tasty enough and we saw the sign that read "BBQ Quail". I told Dennis "I eat birds. I eat turkey and chicken, OK" So she motioned us in and we were handed a menu in English and I figured she forgot about the quail. We got a big bowl of rice, chicken , and egg with chopsticks for 8$ a bowl. Then here she came with the quail-a-bobs! Dennis took a bite of one of the pieces and made a face. "Bones!". he said. I tried it and about gagged.... It was like eating salmon with all those little bones in it. "No way am I eating this stuff," I said and I started looking for a plant or a hungry cat. What was even worse is it was 8$ more each and when I got back out front for a closer look, the heads were still attached!!! Yikes! I told Dennis there were beaks in there! (Dennis said he would probably cough up an owl pellet later tonight as a result.) Anyway, we walked another 2 miles to another neighboring temple, Tofukuji, and we walked around that one some more. It was pretty with all its Zen gardens and nice bridges so that was fun. We saw some young girls taking pictures of each other and they would make the peace sign and smile. I have seen that alot so I asked "are you making a peace sign??" and she giggled and said, "That make us look cute!" I said, "I'll have to remember to do that...alot." hahaha Weird.
Then we were done there and tried to find the train station to get back. The streets are like alleys. Really small and cramped so we missed that! Ended up walking alllll the way back to the Granvia. I felt like I had hiked Fuji all over again!!! Anyway , it was fun and we were so tired we got punchy. At the Zen garden where they rake all the gravel in circles and swirls, I told Dennis we should jump the railing and run through it! I could drag my heel through it and spell "Lee Ann (heart) Dennis" really big. We payed 16 bucks and didn't even get to see a Budda! We've laughed a lot today. I think we are losing our minds.......
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