We flew back home for Christmas with Jeff's parents and had a lovely 9 hour layover in Narita, the airport just outside of Tokyo. Instead of wasting our lives away in the airport, we decided to venture out and get a little taste of Japan... Def. one of the better ideas we've had! We hopped on a little Trolly/Bus that took us to a Buddhist Temple in Narita, a suburb of Tokyo.
The Temple grounds went on FOREVER. There were stairs, after stairs, after stairs. It was amazing! We were lucky enough to catch some Buddhist Monks perform some type of prayer ceremony. We didn't really have a clue what was going on, but it was fascinating! They were chanting, and praying, and burning things, and banging drums... I want to do more research so I can truly appreciate what was going on.
After walking the Temple grounds for a while, we decided to grab some lunch. The cute little elderly women running the restaurant didn't speak a lick of English, and the very little I knew of Japanese was all food related. Luckily one of the women and I came up with our own way of communicating with one another.. it involved lots of pointing, shaking heads, and bowing... I managed to order us a pretty stellar lunch that included some Ramen, Tempura and Eel. it was DELISH!
After lunch, we braved the serious wind-chill, and wandered the quiet little streets and shops of Narita. It was AWESOME! Before we knew it we were back at the airport and ready to board the plan for HOME! I def want to make an official trip to Japan. I loved what I saw and experience in the short 9 hours we were there.
