Hello Again, Thanks for waiting.
Well then, our weekend...
After slashing our usual 2hr20min trip to Archs down to under 2 hours we had a super catch-up over some Yaki-Niku; (Yaki , meaning "to roast/grill" and Niku , meaning "meat" = inordinate amounts of meaty-meat you roast yourselves over a small, charcoal BBQ.) I look left....I look right...nary a vegetable do I see.......Mmmmmmmmm. Meeeeeeaaaat.

An aside on that- Nic does sometimes run in to trouble when introducing herself as "NIc", because the Japanese generally pronounce in 2 letter combinations - ka, gi, mu etc, which is why there is very rarely a Japanese company that ends not on a vowel sound - ToyoTA, HonDA, MitsubiSHI etc - So when Nic introduces herself, the closest they can get to approximating it is Ni-ku, meaning Nic simply states "Gidday, call me MEAT."- Bemused stares all round.

Anywhoo, next day we started our super trip to Nara, and lo! there was certainly much gob-smacked staring and a small amount of running from rabid, out-to-get-you-sacred-deer. The deer just hang out around the enormous park that has the historic attractions of Nara placed on it. You buy little bikkies for them to nibble on, but some of them...

a) don`t understand you have to physically have the bikkies in your hand before they can accost you for them, and

b) have grown past the Oooja-boooja-boo-wook-at-the-widdle-deery-weery-lets-give-him-a-widdle-bikkie-wikkie stage and are old, fat, ugly and angry at the younger Bambi (tm) types working the crowds and getting the goods.

These make for scary deer.

So we ran the gauntlet of deer and made or way to the star attraction, the Todai-Ji Temple. You can also have a gork here. Think of something big. Then think of that as being very small. Then think of this building being very big. And completely made of wood. And considered `new` because it was built in 1709. Relatively new I guess, but the statue inside of the big Buddha fellow is really very, very big and old, dating, in parts from the original, cast in 749, with the `newer` pieces added in the 12th century. The guy is 48 feet tall people. And he`s sitting down. Thats a pretty big guy.

The building has two main beams supporting the roof, these are 1m in diameter and 23m long, weighing in at a cool 43.5 tons each. Of wood. These are 40m above the ground and you can`t see them for the gold and carry-on on the ceiling. They sit there, thanklessly supporting the 1200 tons of building plonked around them. I thanked them. Particularly when they were over my head.

We spent a while in there and just as we were coming on out, the nature turned on a flash thunder storm forcing us to sit on the 1600 year old steps and do a good bit of people watching. CONCLUSION: There are some sour faced old American tourists who need someone to tap them on the shoulder and remind them just how long ago 1600 years was and how big a 48ft tall sitting Buddha guy actually is.

It was a very peaceful excursion. You wash your hands before entering the hall, you place incense in an enormous incense bowl just at the entrance way, waft some of the smoke over yourself and then go in and look at a representation of a God who has a very relaxed look on his face and looks like he has just read a damn good book, or scratched a good scratch, or eaten some bacon. It was really very, very nice.

I have to go and make boomerangs- thats just the sort of thing that happens over here. Toodle pip.
berin and nic.