always at the last minute...

I went to see this

And saw the hell out of it

and it saw me, too

 but I had all day, so I wandered north and east, through here

which looked like a pretty even split of shrine ruins and more newly-built ones, and which definitely felt like it must have been haunted (and of course it was empty)
and then just up a minute on a road where I thought I'd find nothing I saw this

which looked interesting
and at first i was like

And then I was like

and i thought hey, this is way too familiar
and then I remembered this

 and then I came home and looked it up.  That print has been one of my favorites for years, but I never knew anything about it.  Apparently the artist was a Japanese American who lived in Boston, at least for a while. The temple is Nigatsudou, and (according to Wikipedia) though the main building burned down in a fire in the 1600s and had to be rebuilt, it was originally built almost 1300 years ago.   There is a very interesting article about the annual festival, called Omizutori, which has happened every year on March 12 since the beginning, in 752.
here - 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omizutori

I spoke to someone working at the temple for a little while and when he showed me photos of the priests with this giant torch (it has to be 5 or 6 feet long) that they carry around this temple every year, I really couldn't believe it.  It's amazing that there has only been one fire all this time.   If I could come back in March, there's no way I'd miss Omizutori.

I took well over 500 photos today - there are a lot more decent ones, but they'll have to wait along with hundreds from other places I have barely mentioned.  I do have a lot of catching up to do with photo posts... but I am leaving my dingy guesthouse room in Osaka tomorrow to spend a day and a half with friends and then go to Kyoto for a few days on my way to the farm.  So today I made sure to go back to Nara, and fortunately the weather was good.  I heard it was the first capital city, and is much older than Kyoto. Don't quote me on that - I'm way waaaaay behind on my Japanese history.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  I'm getting to it.
But Nara is beautiful.  It's that place you've probably heard of where deer hang out all over the place, like it's no big deal - there are so many places to see within walking distance of the train station, all around the public park, it's kind of ridiculous.  I walked around for at least 6 hours despite the (still) sorry shape of my left foot, and wish I had another day to go back soon.  I wish I'd realized what was out there a few weeks ago, when I was worried I had too much free time.  Nara takes less than an hour on the local train from Osaka, and costs a little over 5 dollars each way.  The train ride is relatively scenic, too.