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.

The weather forecast were quite bad from late morning so we didn’t wait much, left early and took the bus to Nara park, then walked to Todaiji Temple. We were lucky to get a 15min private guided tour. Our guide Nobu told us about the history of the site and the japanese traditions at the temples, like for example how to wash our hands prior to entering the temples. The bronze Budha statue inside the building is massive -because of the construction technique involving broad casting platform made of sand, the building was built aftervthe status was finished.

No sign of rain yet, we continued our walk in the park, to the Great bell and the Nigatsudo and Sangatsudo halls. Sarah got a nice calligraph there. We took a tea in a nice break room – free for everyone to take a cup of tea, as long as you clean the cup afterward. We went for lunch in a restaurant nearby, with a nice view on a shrine. We all took soup with noodles, great occasion to practice our chopsticks technique.

The rain hadn’t come yet, so we walked to the Kasuga Taisha Shrine, on the other side of the park.