Thursday, July 16 shared by Kelsey Greer

Shared by Kelsey Greer: Thursday, July 16: Ｔｈｉｓ　ｄａｙ　ｓｔａｒｔｅｄ　ｂｒｉｇｈｔ　ａｎｄ　ｅａｒｌｙ at 6;30．　We started by filling our stomachs with a wonderful breakfast buffet provided by the Swiss Hotel of Nankai. From there we took the subway and the J-R Train to Nara. As soon as we arrived, we realized why on the map the N in Nara was a deer. There were TONS of deer that swarmed us poor tourists, but you could appease them by buying deer crackers and feeding them. But you must feed them quickly, because once you ran out of food, the deer would not be happy. They are so insistant and aggressive that they will even eat paper! I decided I did not like them after two nudged me strongly.
After escaping the deer, we went to see the Big Buddha. I was very, very large, as indicated by the name. We viewed this important icon of Buddhism, and then we crawled through a hole in order to bring us good luck. Some of us almost got stuck. We also donated a roof tile and wrote on it for the refurbishing of the temple. Then, we climbed to the top of a hill to see the view of Nara. It was beautiful! After the long trek, we started lunch off right by eating some ice cream. Sesame flavor was tried by our daring food adventurer, Rylan. To follow the ice cream, we had lunch at a traditional Japanese restaurant. We were filled with rice, noodles, and tempura, our favorite. Then we took a taxi to the oldest temple, one of the few that has not burnt all the way down. Next, we went shopping. A lot of you will be getting some great souvenirs! Then the subway and J-R Train took us home to the hotel.
Curry was the next food that we attempted. All of us loved the beef curry with pumpkin and eggplant. Rylan, always the fearless food fanatic, tried hard-hot curry and sweated throughout the whole meal. Then we traveled back to the hotel and prepared for our navigation/scavenger hunt! The teams were Rylan, Molly, and Sarah against Tess and me. We started with a dash through the hotel. As we sprinted up the stairs and down the narrow and busy hallways of the subway, we sweated and tried to find three different objects across Osaka. Little did we know that we were going to taste our delicious dinner again due to the strenuous task. Just kidding, but it was close! The race ended after one hour and thirty minutes. I am happy to say that Tess and I won! We beat the other team by 20 minutes! Despite many holdups and pitfalls, the game was so much fun! It allowed us to experience Osaka and the spider web of the subway. As a reward for our winning team, we decided to do karaoke and get Starbucks.
It was such a fun day!