3 Weeks?! What?

     Yes, it's true! I've been in Japan for three weeks officially today! And one month ago, I left on a plane from Kansas City airport with the sight of my mom waving like a madwoman to send me off! :P
I can't lie, I've been a little homesick. Mostly, I miss being able to talk and see everyone whenever I want. But I also miss my favorite foods - simple mac and cheese and real pizza and beef and noodles come to mind all the time, my beloved kitty cat, the two dorky dogs, and hugging all the members of my family. It's surprising how much you can miss hugs when you are cut off from them all the sudden. Hugs and having kids crawl all over you are probably my top two missed things. (Wait, my cat takes the cake so make that "my second two missed things.")
     But I'm having so much fun here! Life in Japan is so different from life in America but I'll save all of those differences for a different post. Right now, I have exactly one to report on - the presence of awesome historical treasures that are over a mere 200 years old! Last weekend I went to a city called Nara, which has a huge park that has many, many different national treasures to visit. Not only that, but it's filled with tons of deer!!!

     They are literally walking around everywhere. Not only that, but they aren't scared of people so you can walk up to them (if they haven't surrounded you already) and pet them without them being skittish or unruly.

     This picture is from before we started feeding the deer and there were that many around us! Generally you are going to have at least one beside you if you are standing still, but usually they all come and go. Just before this, my host mom had a map brochure in her hand and deer grabbed it to try and eat it! She had to wrestle the deer to get it to let go! And they like to try to eat your clothes too - or to get your attention! So funny! And a little scary! :P
     But back to the feeding the deer thing - do so with caution! There are smart ways and stupid ways to feed the deer and you'll quickly learn that you definitely want to do it the smart way! It's very easy for you to give one deer a piece of food (they are sold all over the park and are flat, round and basically a dryer and less appetizing version of a cookie), only to look up to see 12 deer crowding around you.

     Here is a picture of almost this exact situation, except the man had been walking with all of these deer following him, before he decided to stop. Just after I took this picture, one of the deer jumped up to  reach the food he's holding over his head. Can't say that I envied his situation. I honestly found throwing the food away from you was the best way to avoid having a ton of deer scare the living daylights out of you by bullying you around.

     We went to Todaiji as well. Todaiji is an ancient Buddhist temple that was originally built in the first half of the 8th century. It has been rebuilt several different times and is today considered the largest buikding in the world that is constructed mainly out of wood. Of course, this is despite the fact that it is actually about 30% smaller than the original size. (I barely managed to fit it into the view screen of my camera and I was really far away from it.)
     Todaiji houses the Great Buddha, which really is a great, giant bronze statue of Buddha. It's listed as being 49 feet tall! Thus, standing in front of it, you feel like a tiny ant . . .

     Of course, he wasn't the only cool statue. There were also the Ah-Un guards at the gate to the temple and two different vicious-looking guys inside the temple (one was standing on an ogre!), and two other, smaller Buddha-related statues as well.

 (Random photo of the back of the Great Buddha . . . XD)

 (This one below is standing on the ogre!)

     And they had a scale model of the original Todaiji - it was humongous!!!

Part of the gate that was surrounding the Todaiji building. It was really cool!

      I can't remember the name of temple right now but, sadly, it was all covered up for renovations. It was still really cool! But this was the steps leading up to the temple and a graveyard.

 One of the many places you must wash your hands (because you do this before entering any temple and other such holy places.) I really liked the dragon on this one!

 My first time seeing REAL rice paper doors!!! XD

The roofs here (even on normal, modern buildings) are so much cooler than in America! They have *style.*

 My first fortune and I got a bad one . . . DX Still haven't had time to go through and read it.

 A big five story pagoda! I don't know the full story but this one is especially big and famous! XD This also is not the full thing - I was way too close to be able to get the whole thing in the picture. It has a really tall, thin pole coming out of the top.

 The kanji on ends of the shingles say "Kiyomizudera Temple," which was the name of the temple we were at at the moment. It thought it was so pretty looking!

     Anyway, that is all for now, cause that's all the pictures I have. But, if you have any special requests for what you wanna know about,  tell me! Cause I'm running out of topics to post on. More like, there are so many that it's impossible to choose one or two! XD