The reviews were not very engaging, but we still took the chance and went to the Manga museum. It’s a very nice museum, actually, for all ages. It’s quite big, with different rooms, exhibitions, activities and thousands of manga books – in Japanese but also in other languages.

There were schools visiting that day, it was very lively. Also the museum is located in an old elementary school, that’s nice in itself – it makes a special atmosphere. While there, we attended a traditional street show, Kamishibai, the ancestor of TV as the comedian presented it. We all got small presents for our good answers. The kids drew manga at a computer station. All in all a nice experience for the family.

We had lunch at a nearby McDonald’s – I know it sounds strange, but it was a promise made to Hugo a few weeks’ back.

Sarah went with the Harper girls to the Kyoto Handicraft Center where they learnt to paint Japanese fans.

With the boys, we went to the Nanzen-ji temple, on the east side of town. It was a very relaxing time, in a beautiful and peaceful place, in the shadow of both the forest and the mountains – the word ‘Zen’ fits perfectly to describe the place. The walk from and back the bus stop was also nice, through rich or less rich neighborhoods, but all very Japanese in their own way.

We finally met everyone at diner, at a typical sushi restaurant with a conveyor belt and a Shinkansen train for special orders.

We first went to the Nikishi market. It was quite early in the day, not too crowded and very pleasant to walk in the arcades passing by shops selling all kind of things and food – not necessarily the most appealing types…

We went for a picnic in the parc of the imperial palace, and followed a nice guided tour inside the Imperial palace. We saw the main buildings, got a full explanation of which gate to use depending on your social rank and where to wait for the emperor. We also visited the beautiful gardens, one representing the seashore, the other one a creek. The last garden was a kitchen, or used to be. It was destroyed in the 2nd world war… but not by bombings, just preventively to prevent spreading of a possible fire.

After a refreshing ice cream, we headed to the Pokemon Center. The excitement was huge when entering the shop! Tim bought himself a Pokemon teddy bear, while Hugo bought some Japanese Pokemon cards.

We met our friends for dinner near the hotel, a place where orders are made on iPads. Dangerous with kids!

We simply picked today’s program from our guidebook… We took the bus to the Monkey park in Arashiyama, a sporty but nice walk in the forest with monkeys at the top. We didn’t see the monkeys until the very top so for a moment it felt like we would be the monkeys there… The kids fed the monkeys from inside a house (a cage, really). The view from there over Kyoto was beautiful.

After a quick lunch, we visited the garden of the Tenryuji temple, where we met the Harper family. Just outside the garden, we took a short walk into the bamboo forest. Very refreshing as the light barely makes it through to the ground level.

Next we took the bus to the Kinkakju-ji, the famous and beautiful Golden temple. It was crowded but it is well organized. Finally we took the bus back to the hotel. Dinner time now!

We arrived in Kyoto mid-afternoon. Our first impression: it’s busy! Especially compared to the quiet Nara.

A quick stop at the tourist office, then bus to the hotel. Very nice hotel, traditional room with tatamis. They gave us kimonos when we checked in, to the kids’s delight – 1 minute after entering the room, the whole family was wearing them.

We took the bus to Gion area, walked in the park in the beautiful afternoon light, ate diner at a tiny restaurant, walked a bit more and – finally – met our friends!

Day 3 and last day in Nara, we went to a typical japanese garden, the Yoshiki-en garden. It has a nice, quiet atmosphere. The wind in the trees and bamboos makes a peaceful soundtrack.

We sat down under a shelter and the kids spent a few minutes drawing on their notebooks.

After the garden, while wandering in the area, we entered and visited a traditional Japanese house, once the home of a famous Japanese photographer Irie Taikichi. Our guide took us through all the rooms, told us about tatamis, sliding doors, tea room etc. The most impressive is the emptiness of this house – there are very few furniture. It feels very relaxing not to be surrounded by quantities of objects. Another big difference with Norwegian houses is the little importance given to insulation, to the benefit of the proximity to the outside, to the vegetation.

After a last walk through the deer park, we came back at the house, to eat lunch (including a Minions’ spread) and pack.

And then it was time to leave Nara, by train. We had a very nice stay here; we recovered from the flights and dived into Japan, its lifestyle and history. Next city: Kyoto, where we will meet the two other families we will be travelling with from now on.

Our tour in the Nara park took us to the Kasuga Taisha Shrine, through walkways sided by lanterns, hundreds of them. It was a nice walk, not too crowded but quite a few visitors – mostly Japanese, some even wearing traditional kimonos.

We walked back to town as it started raining, and stopped by the tourists office for an initiation to origami that the kids enjoyed while we the parents were enjoying an afternoon coffee.

We came back home, had diner and planned our next days.