We had a different breakfast this morning! I picked up pancake mix at the grocery store yesterday, and so this morning I used a pot as my bowl and four chopsticks as my whisk, and made pancakes! They turned out pretty good, and we topped them with condensed milk (in a tube, much more convenient) and passionfruit, orange and guava jam (spoonless jam!).
After breakfast came Norwegian school and some French Duolingo, then lunch before we set off to explore. Today’s destination – Shitennoji Temple. This was the first state-sponsored Buddhist temple in Japan!
This was a beautiful and peaceful site to walk through, even though I kind of cringe when loud and obnoxious tourists walk through and don’t respect the site. I am sure the locals look at us and feel the same way. I can’t imagine having all the outsiders trample through where I do my prayers. Here’s hoping that at least we give off friendly and respectful vibes, more than anything else!
I saw a lady walk in and spin this wheel, and upon further reading (thanks to Google Translate, my Japanese reading is coming along swimmingly), I discovered this is the Wheel of Dharma. You are supposed to turn the wheel lightly clockwise with the palm of your hand, representing the Buddha’s teachings rotating like a wheel and spreading far and wide. I like this little ritual for entering a holy site!
The buildings here are really impressive, the roofs are slanted upwards so that evil spirits from above fall down and bounce right back off, away from the buildings themselves. The intricate details of all the architecture is beautiful!
Random vending machine photo of the day was four beverage vending machines in a row, keep in mind the red thing at the right in this photo is the first of three other beverage vending machines around the corner, and on the left of these four, were another three on the other side of the doorway. I guess it’s a super popular site, requiring 10 machines for drinks!?
After the Buddhist temple site, we walked down towards the more familiar Abenobashi, to explore a skyscraper we just recently realized houses another mall. By now we were starving and ready for a snack. We tried a famous donut chain, and we all got different treats. Joe’s was tiramisu flavoured, Maylin’s chocolate, Téa picked an Oreo one, and I skipped the donuts for a “salty bread” (looked like a croissant, but with different dough, and salt flakes on top) with red bean paste and a pat of butter. They warmed mine up, and it was very delicious!
We browsed for a bit, found some cute stores we want to revisit later, and discovered that maybe I can like Halloween in Japan, as it’s so far promising more cute than gory!
On our way home, it started drizzling for real. By the time we bussed it back to our area and walked to our street, Joe and Téa took off for the grocery store, and Maylin and I went home.
Joe cooked spectacular salmon for dinner, and even picked up some eel sushi for me, as I had mentioned I wanted to visit an eel restaurant soon. The very specific and luxurious “problem” with Japanese restaurants, is that they specialize in what they’re good at. If a restaurant sells eel, it doesn’t necessarily have any other items on the menu. We were researching a steak restaurant online, and the steak is so expensive, yet there are no smaller dishes or child friendly dishes listed at all. I guess they just only specialize in beef!
Checking the forecast, we came to the agreement that tomorrow, Saturday, would be Monday, and we would take Monday off to explore instead. So we went to bed on a Friday night, preparing for a Monday morning. Hey, we don’t have any restraints, we can do that if we want!