I have to admit I was dubious when My Man pushed for a rest stop in Japan on our way to Thailand. The hassle of baggage claim, customs & immigration, hotel transfers, and airport security, only to do it all again the next day didn't seem worth it to me. But he gently persisted (would a several-hour layover and then another 6 hours on a plane be better?!) and I am so glad he did. By the time we arrived in Japan, after our 3am wake up in Utah, flight to LAX, then flight to Japan, we were all ready for a break!
Ever since we hosted a Japanese exchange student when I was little, I’ve been fascinated with Japan. Incredibly, though we’ve transited Japan several times now (usually on our way to or from Korea), we never made it out of the airport. This time, though, there was just enough time for a small adventure. Jet lag, some last-minute online work training (for My Man), and just plain travel exhaustion kept the boys at the hotel (a decision none of them regretted), but Darling Daughter and I headed out to Narita for the morning. We had a blast.
Our bus dropped us off in the middle of Narita, a cute little Japanese town next to the airport (we decided to save Tokyo for another day when we had more than a couple hours). From there, we made our way to the temple street, a road lined with interesting shops that leads to Naritasan Shinsho-ji temple.
It was the last day of the New Year's festival, so there were lots of people out and the atmosphere was festive.
When we got to the temple, there were even more people, there to start the year off right, buying fortunes, paying alms, burning incense, and offering gifts. Many of the temple buildings had huge lines and there were crowds of people everywhere.
The buildings were beautiful. Reminiscent of the Korean Buddhist temples we'd visited, the brightly painted pagodas were especially stunning.
There was a beautiful forest with trails twisting through. Ginormous stones and monuments jutted up throughout.
Since we don't know any Japanese, Darling Daughter and I had fun imagining what different signs or script said. Was this a graveyard or a monument garden? I like to think maybe the giant stones memorialized great heroes of the past. Or maybe the engravings were timeless quotes, nuggets of wisdom. Regardless, I could have wandered through this forest for hours.
But Darling Daughter was more interested in the souvenir shops. So after a few forest trails, we headed back to the temple to finish looking around before heading out to the shops.
The temple grounds were beautiful. There were many statues and gardens and buildings and so many people!
We were glad we came in the morning because by the time we were leaving, the crowds had swollen dramatically.
As we were leaving, a procession of colorfully dressed monks were climbing the stairs to the temple.
On our way back up the street to the bus stop, we browsed the many shops, fascinated by strange foods, samples, and trinkets. Darling Daughter had fun shopping for a little souvenir for each of the guys. At one store, she was delighted to find stuff we'd seen in Bali. Sure enough, it turned out to be a Balinese shop.
Another store was full of beautiful and expensive drums. When we peeked in, the owner directed us to the front where there was a sound system hooked up to a tire. Darling Daughter got to rock out to her heart's content.
We got back to the hotel just in time to hop on the shuttle back to the airport, happy to have earned that extra stamp in our passport.
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