Bibs for Buddha

So after a wonderful day spent in the Mountains we awoke to the sound of rain. It's kind of nice to wake up on rainy mornings and lucky for us it rained on Saturday instead of on Friday. We took the morning slow. We woke up for another nice oatmeal and hot chocolate for breakfast and then chatted with my family as they were celebrating Jeff's Birthday. Happy Birthday Jeff, way to turn 30! They got a cute bundle of fur named Dash and it was fun to chat with them and see their new dog.

After chatting with the family we went back up into our room and it started really coming down. Rather than start our trek into the rain we decided to read some books. We downloaded Spookly the square pumpkin and then I found this app that has a whole collection of kids books and read one called The Haunted House Party. Afterwards I finished it off with some more grown up reads from Edgar Allen Poe. After the rain settled down we went into town to go see the Red-Bibbed Buddhas. We grabbed some food on the way and it was surprisingly good for a low end diner looking place. We walked along the main river in Nikko, past the famous bridge and through a nice little neighbourhood.

Sacred Bridge 

Cami and I checking out the sacred bridge.  Did I mention that you have to pay to get on it, Lame...

Pretty leaf

  It wasn't long until we came upon the shrines and the red-bibbed buddhas. You'll see from the pictures that we post that the Buddhas are pretty normal buddhas with the exception that they have little bonnets and bibs knitted for them and they are very vibrant red, which compliments their mossiness very nicely. There were quite a few of them and we spent some time taking pictures. We then crossed over to the other side, saw some more temples, and a shrine dedicated to self immolation victims. Cami and I didn't really know what it was all about, but we thought it had to do with some type of self inflicted harm and it does. According to the ipad's dictionary it is killing or sacrificing, especially by burning. Fun stuff right? Well maybe not but the shrine was pretty.

Buddhas with Bibs 

Mr. Buddha with a bib 

More Buddhas with Bibs 

The river was really cool by the Buddhas 

Kayaking would have been fun 

So Many Buddhas with Bibs 

One of these things is not like the others 

Another wallpaper 

Cami on the not so sacred bridge 

Cami with her Geisha friends 

We walked back through town found out what time we needed to be at the train station and made our way back to the lodge for some din din. There were three options, veggie-curry, non-veggie curry (which didn't have any meat in it that I could find), and pasta. We got the two curries, had a scoop of ice cream, a small pineapple cake and played WAR. That's right the game where you each get half the deck, flip your cards over one by one and the higher card wins. It was fun and kept us entertained for a while. We then moved onto Go Fish, another classic.

We ended up chatting with a couple from Kentucky about a variety of subjects. After which Cami, read some scriptures - she's doing the 100 day Book of Mormon Challenge - and I played the guitar. All in, it was a pleasant easy going evening, to end a pleasant easy going day.

We are currently on our way to more exciting adventures and Karuizawa, near Nagano.