Back to Japan

I'm tired of Matthew and I'm really tired of cleaning up after him, so let's head back to Japan where our daughter took us to see the Buddhist temple at Sasaguri called Nanzoin.  It is the home of  a huge reclining Buddha, measuring 41 meters long, 11 meters high and weighing 300 tons. Rumor has it, according to our daughter, that the local priest hit the lotto and had the Buddha made for the shrine, it only dates to 1995.
The whole complex was amazing and I wasn't surprised to learn that it receives more than a million visitors a year.
A few, snark, of the photos we took there.

And the Buddha

Trees

The first of the tree removal began today, it's going to be a multi-day process and some of them have to stay in place till the insurance people get here.  Beautiful day though and everyone is pitching in to to help each other.
Our water went out most of yesterday while they fixed a broken main, but was back on by last night.
I have nothing but praise for all of our utility companies, they must have worked around the clock to get things put back together.

Home!!

We were finally allowed home on Sunday, we'd tried to return on Saturday, but the police had the town blocked off as they checked for downed trees and electrical wires.  Sunday when they let us in the drive here was scary, many trees on the road.  But we got here and held our breath.  The first house on our block had a tree laying across its yard and laying on their roof.  As we drove up to ours there were trees down everywhere.  Huge trees from our neighbor's yard had fallen on our yard and some how missed our house.  We had one tree laying against our roof.  Inside there were no broken windows.  Out back there were more downed trees and some leaning so badly they'll have to come down.  One is on our deck and pool, just missed the house and propane tank.  The pictures we took don't really show the size of the trees, most were 60-70 footers.  Had they landed on the house is would have been destructive. We are so lucky!!!  Some of our neighbors have been devastated.  A good friend's house is literally covered in downed trees and as we stood talking to them yesterday another fell in their front yard covering their driveway.

Our friend whom we stayed with will be out tomorrow with a chain saw and the clean-up will begin in earnest.
Thank you for all your prayers.

Taking a Break From Worrying About Matthew

We've done all we can, we gassed up the car, bought water and batteries, got battery operated lights, removed all furniture from the deck and and reserved a room at our friend's house who lives inland.  We don't plan on evacuating, but if necessary we will.  Our house is built 14 feet about the ground, that's a requirement in our area in case of flooding, so we're cautiously optimistic that except for losing electricity we should be ok.
But enough about that.  Let's talk about Angkor Wat.  The whole complex, and it is indeed a huge complex, was built between 802 and 1432.  It began life as a Hindu temple but eventually became a Buddhist Temple.  Wat means temple.  Angkor Wat was meant to be a replica of the universe in stone and represents an earthly model of the cosmic world.  It is immense and so, so beautiful.  I was mesmerized.  And I was thrilled to see monkeys on the roof, I've always wanted to see monkeys in the wild, these were Macaques---no our blog is not named after them.  We also saw some on the way to the next temple, our guide lured a couple up to the car so we could take some close-ups.
Someone asked if Angkor  still in use and I would say yes, and they ask you to be respectful in your dress, clothes over your knees and nothing sleeveless if you go to the higher towers.  This is enforced as there have been incidents of visitors posing naked and they were arrested.
I was so enthralled with Angkor, but in fairness I have to say that though it was my favorite temple, it was  not Macs or Aprils.

Angkor Wat

Our driver Tola and our guide Samath

u

Mystical snake 

Ta Prohm

Bayon

Ta Prohm

 He preferred Ta Prohm Kel, also known as the Tomb Raider temple because that's where the film was made, and that was where we headed next.
There are many trees growing up through this structure and Mac liked the way it was part of the jungle.  I was so hot when we got there that I did not go in, but 2 days later we went back earlier in the day and it was virtually empty and we took a ton  of photos.  It was built as a series of chapels for the hospitals that the King had built.  It was much, much smaller than Angkor.
Then we drove to April's favorite, Bayon, known for all the huge carved heads.  There were 54 towers and each side of the towers had a huge carved face. This was a very vertical temple and it was way too hot for me to climb it, so I sat and took pictures while Mac and April explored it.

That was just one day's exploring.  We had arranged in advance to have  a private guide who had a large air-conditioned SUV to drive us around in and each time we returned to the car there were ice cold washrags and bottled ice water.  We couldn't have done our trip without our guide Samath and our driver Tola, they took such good care of us










Here's some more photos