Japan Part 1

 When we got to the airport, we took a train to Narita, a small town on the outskirts of Tokyo which is built around a famous temple. Narita is extremely close to the airport, so most people only ever go to the airport on their way to and from Tokyo, and never see the town. When we left the train it was cold, but not freezing. We wandered the narrow streets looking for our ryokan (old style Japanese inn), and got lost on the way. Luckily a young man helped us find it The ryokan was very large and was cozy and comfortable. There was an onsen (hot spring pumped into a tub), but they didn't allow people with tattoos, and since Camille had one on her back, she didn't go in. We ate dinner in the ryokan, which was brought to us in our room. We ate on the small low table and sat on cushions. Dinner was an interesting mix of strange Japanese food we had never even heard of before. Fermented as well as pickled food was common in ryokan meals as we would soon discover. After we ate, the room attendants came in and laid out our sleeping futons on the tatami mats. We slept soundly. The next day was my birthday, had a traditional Japanese breakfast containing a variety of tasty and not so tasty items, including: raw egg, rice, and fermented soy beans (natto). We checked out at ten to go see the Narita temple. To our benefit the shrine was right next door. We walked through the grand entrance gate with 4 wooden guardian statues, with intense faces. In front of the main building was a large metal cauldron-like receptacle under a roof, where people burned prayer paper and basked in the smoke. It was later explained to us that people do this in the belief that the smoke would increase their luck and intelligence. We later did it too, because I really needed the intelligence. The main building was massive. It had an extremely tall roof, and which made it feel like a cathedral, perhaps to intimidate worshipers and to make people feel small. We walked outside in the large wooded park, through the pathways lined with trees and cherry blossoms just beginning to bloom. We eventually came to a second, even taller spire-like building. On the way there we found a small closed off building that may also have been a shrine. We weren't sure because everything was in Japanese. As we walked back to get our bags from the ryokan and continue on our journey, we took photos of the beautiful pink camellias, as well as the massive sword that was over the entrance of another small shrine. After we got our bags we walked through the streets and marveled at the eel restaurants where the eel peelers were stationed outside cutting up the still wiggling eel bodies. They would slice them down the middle and remove the guts, they did this while holding the eel down so it wouldn't squirm so much. We also saw interesting squishy soap in a store. It came in a disk shape, or a sphere shape. At first we thought they were some edible snack, but then I saw people trying them out and realized they were actually soap. I had a 'soft cream' cone, which was like ice cream, but soft. Then we walked to the train station, to take a train to Koenji...