A lazy day in Nara

The lovely Lynette was excited when I woke up at 8.30am and she sprung out of bed with a "you're welcome" after she had spent two hours patiently waiting for my eyes to open. 😴

We faffed about for a bit before hitting the road in search of coffee and breakfast. The first place we came across had good coffee but a lousy food offering, so we decided a progressive breakfast was in order. The second place had amazing breakfast and lousy coffee, so between the two we had a good start to the day.

Craig was teasing us last night about our (excellent in my opinion) itinerary organisation with some commentary along the lines of how we can't help ourselves and we can't be spontaneous. Red rag to a bull and all that, we just walked today and if we came across a thing, we went to it.

So this is what led us to finding ourselves spending about half an hour in the Nara Karakuri Mechanical Toy Museum, free entry, with a lovely older Japanese lady sitting with us at each table showing us how these old hand made toys worked. We learnt a game similar to Chinese checkers, but actually much more strategic. There was also a game there which was from the Edo period which was suspiciously bey blading! A small donation later and we were on our way.

We then found ourselves in the Naramachi Koshi-no-le Lattice House (free entry again) which was a preserved merchant house in the Naramachi district (which we are staying on the edges of) and it was amazing. They had very narrow frontages because they were taxed based on how much street frontage but the houses were long. Great to see inside. We wandered around the Naramachi district a fair bit today, and for some reason I can't stop humming or singing La Cucaracha. 🙂

Continuing our theme of free things we just wandered into, we also went to the Nara Prefecture Museum of Art and the Nara Craft Museum. We also continued our search for obis which saw us back at the same shop we bought our kimino/yukata from yesterday, where Lynette picked up some more. I snapped a picture of the kimino-wearing ET today though. We also decided to buy one of the giant apples we have been seeing in the shops and have brought that home to have as a snack on the road tomorrow as we make our way to Osaka. Despite our lazy day, we still managed to hit 16,900 steps. And proved Craig wrong!

Craig and Kate have flown out today so we had a bit of chatting with them late morning because their flight was delayed two hours, so they will have a very late arrival into Osaka, probably in the wee hours of the morning before they get to their accommodation I suspect. To boot, my darling Finny, who is never unwell, had a bit of a medical episode today, so I have had to worry about him from afar. Luckily he has Eleanor there to take care of him now that he has been abandoned by both of his parents.Read more