Got around by mid morning and headed out to the train station to move on to Kyoto and our next hotel. We had seen a McDonald’s the day before near the train station and you always have to check out McDonald’s in other countries so we decided to grab breakfast to go and eat on the train. We got there and it was instantly a no-brainer to eat there as the first thing we see is an ad for a McHotDog Classic and McHotdog Mega sausage. It was even better when we got inside and saw they were serving breakfast. They had some of the usual things but the McHotDog was on the menu for breakfast and so was the Mega Muffin which was 2 sausage patties, cheese, egg and 2 strips of bacon on an english muffin. I obviously got both! It was pretty much as fantastic as it sounds and the hot dog wasn’t bad if a little odd for breakfast. We changed trains in Osaka and got to Kyoto with no trouble and set out to find our hotel. The directions I had were pretty good and we found it in pretty short order. It was before check-in time so we dropped off our baggage and headed back to the JR station to do a little sight seeing. We wanted to hit the Fushimi-Inari shrine and Nara today. We got off at the Inari station and headed across the street (literally the easiest place to find of anything yet) to the entrance of the shrine. This shrine is known for it’s thousands of toriis lined up along the paths up to the different shines on the hillside. If you have seen Memoirs of a Geisha you have seen this. We decided we would go up a little ways then come back so we took off up the stairs to the first shrine. Just before we got to the start of the toriis we ran into a group of school kids and this started our day of being english practice for different kids. They would say “hello” and “how are you” and answer “fine or “ok” back. It’s pretty fun and the least we could do for all the patience the Japanese seem to have with foreigners who speak basically none of their language. The toriis were pretty amazing but a little redundant after a while so we took another path down at the first stopping point and headed on to Nara. At Nara we took a bus to the main park area and immediately saw the deer that Nara is famous for. Becky had wanted to feed the deer on Miyajima but we never found anyone selling deer food but that was the first thing she saw here. I think she might now regret this decision as you will see from the video when I post it. It was a pretty funny site that was repeated many times with other tourists and school kids as we went through the park. We next went through the Treasure House that contained ancient Bhuddist scupltures, etc from the temples in the area. Many dated back to the 8th century. After this we went by the 5 storied pagoda in the park and then on to the Todai-ji temple which is the centerpiece. We headed in following the huge crowds and walked through the grounds to the main temple building. One aside in the temple house there were a few really big Buddha statues and so I thought I was prepared for seeing a “Great Bhudda” but let me tell you this thing was HUGE! It’s hard to describe and I am afraid pictures won’t do it justice but just believe me when I tell you it is really big. There are 2 “smaller” Buddhas on each side of the main one that are 2-3 times the size of the ones I thought were so big in the the treasure house. After we circled the temple we had gotten back right in front of the Bhudda and I was taking pictures when Becky said she was stepping out front because it was crowded in the main entrance. When I came out she was talking to 3 little junior high girls (there were hundreds of school kids there on field trips) and she promptly introduced them to me and we had a conversation with them. By conversation I meand we asked the simplest questions we could think of and they would all consult the paper they had and agree on an answer or another question. We think this was likely a school assigment to talk to someone in English but in the end we took several pictures with them and agreed they could write us a letter and we would write back. We then headed back through the crowd, and the deer, to the bus stop and back to the station to get checked in to the hotel in Kyoto. This hotel is “Japanese style” which means tatami mat floors and taking of your shoes in the entrance. Your bed is cushions that you lay out each night on the floor. After getting checked in we headed to the Gion district of Kyoto which is an older area of Kyoto that is famous for geisha. We took the subway there and started walking to the Gion corner area to look around. There was a cultural show there but it was pretty expensive so we decided to find something to eat. I just missed a picture of a geisha (actually apprentice I think to be exact) in this area but later when crossing a main road we saw another and I got several good pictures. We settled on a little Japanese diner type place to eat which was very cozy and very good food. I had crab omelet over rice with a beef type gravy on it which was fantastic and Becky had noodles with seafood and vegetables and egg. We also got some gyoza (pot sticker dumplings) which we later saw on a sign that they were invented in the Gion area. After this we headed back to the hotel to turn in for the night.