In Japan - Field Trip Last Part - Hasadera & Daibutsu

Finally, last part of the trip *phew*

First, Hasadera. 

There's a cave with a lot of statues inside. It's a little dark; my camera can't really support dark environment shots and my hands aren't stable enough to keep the camera from moving. I didn't take that many pictures but here's what it looks like:

There's a place where you can climb the stairs to see a nice view from the top. Well, you can't really see anything exceptionally spectacular and the tree branches kind of hindered the view, but it sure felt nice up there.

They sell teramanjuu (temple bun), which is filled with absolutely no meat, no fish, no egg. Just vegetables and mushrooms. It was warm and delicious, although I would really prefer meat buns. But if I ever switched to a vegetarian lifestyle, then this manju is definitely my favorite!

Fudou statue

This is a turnable library. I wasn't sure of the mechanism, but apparently it allows you to find a sutra reading easily.

A lot of the places, including the giant statue of the 11-faced god, doesn't allow photography so I couldn't include anything much. But Hasadera is a beautiful place indeed :) A lot of unique statues to see.

Last place visited was the Great Buddha (Daibutsu).

From the front... HUGE.

From the side... wait, what? Are those wings on his back?

NOOOOPE THEY'RE WINDOWS!! The Great Buddha has windows on his back!?

Well, the reason is that you can actually enter the statue! Pay 30 yen and you can climb inside :D

You can't really reach for the windows but you definitely can tell where the windows are

When I was inside the Great Buddha I thought there would be something cool, like... what if the statue were actually a giant robot? LOL. But anyways, it was very dark when I was climbing the stairs inside the statue. After a while your eyes will adjust, and you'll be able to see the textures within the statue.

On the way home, there's this soft ice cream (in Japanese it's called soft cream) that got pretty famous just because the current American president Obama had a matcha ice cream there before. The matcha ice cream thus earned the nickname Obamattcha. Although this Obamattcha got somehow popular, it's not any better than any regular matcha ice cream in terms of flavor. What's actually really famous here is the murasaki-imo (purple sweet potato) ice cream. It has a taste like sweet potato, but very starchy and somehow you can taste a little caramel or honey-like flavor. And the fragrance is definitely unique. It's really delicious :)

And last but not least, Hato Sable. It's also a very famous cookie from this area. I can't remember the exact price but I think it was 550 yen for 5 cookies.

It's shaped like a hato (dove). It is just a normal butter cookie, but I heard from my teacher that there is a long story about how the owner of the shop is very meticulous about keeping the cookies in high quality. When his son didn't do a good job making the cookies, he had the store shut until he could return the quality back to the original. 

Well, that's all the stories from my field trip! It's Golden Week right now and I had been enjoying matsuri (festivals). More interesting stories coming up! Whew, so many things to write, so little time :D