Amadeus is still chilling around town, so we reckon it might be a good idea to go out and tour one of the working temples around the area.But as it turns out, it isnt even close at all. It takes us about an hour by train to get there. We were excited though, cause it was decent to get out of nara for a while and check out some more sites.
The road to hasedera was long and hot and sweaty. Its built into the side of a mountain range, so you gotta walk all the way there from the station, it was a long and grueling 20 minutes trip, and by the end of it, we were thanking our lucky stars that we had packed our shamwow to catch all the sweat from our perspirating brows.
The temple was cool, there were monks wandering around, driving in cars and smoking cigarettes, the kind of stuff i hadnt pictured monks doing. The times they are a changin though.
I got some decent pictures by this long stairway. It turns out japanese folks dont like the number 4, so as opposed to building the stairs with 400 steps, they only made 399. good news for us. we made it to the top of the stairs to the temple area, which had lots of these cool cloth things
hanging on the outer area of the temple. the inside was full of all these gold statues. me and amadeus lit some candles and said a couple little prayers there, cause seriously, i know gods already got my back, but nothing wrong with getting on buddhas side too.we took some adventurous and contemplative shots off the side of this veranda like place in front of the temple.
we wanted to go inside and get a closer look at some of the stuff, but they were charging like 1000yen to get into the inner areas of the temple, plus the monk got mad at me for wearing shoes on his little wooden area where i reckon you were supposed to change your shoes. psh, seriously gimme a break. i thought you were supposed to stand on the wood while you changed, but i guess i was wrong, and i was yelled at by a monk.
me and amadeus walked away, feeling like we had been wronged and then talked crap about the monk behind his back for about five minutes until we felt better about the whole situation.we went on down a path that was covered in all these old graveyards for former priests and monks. for some reason, sometimes people put things like sake or coke cans on top of the markers, i guess to make an offering to the dead or something. anyway, amadeus ended up stealing a can of something before he knew it was meant to be there for a reason, and now he is haunted eternally by the spirit of a dead priest.
also, during the day, i picked up a bamboo stick, and became a spiritual leader called bura-dashi. some of my teachings include avoiding the wearing of surfer clothing, the everyday eating of hamburgers and hotdogs, and abstinence from listening to music classified under the genre "indie"
bura-dashi believes in an existence of mostly eating, sleeping, and drinking lots of coke zero. its appropriate for male followers of bura-dashi to be afraid of females, but only the ones they like.
your devotion to bura-dashi will lead to a lifetime of happiness and harmony with those around you.on the way back to nara, amadeus and the newly dicovered priest within brandon, bura-dashi, stopped by another temple in omiwa. they enjoyed their time there greatly and bura-dashi was greatly impressed with the beauty of the "shrine maids" there.
but seriously, they had the coolest outfits i had ever seen.
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