Post pilgrimage 4 - Meeting friends, giant statue, JAXA center

With friday not much to say. I was going to meet a friend I first time met two years ago near Narita and the way trains work it would take several hours to get there. Also I had quite a bit of hangover from last night (:D) so didn't feel like wandering around the Tokyo anyway so spent the morning mostly laying around trying to get my head feel like it's not going to explode!

Around lunch time headed out for a meal and ran into konomiyaki restaurant. This is the Osaka speciality I had tried in fast-food stand style but this was more fancy restaurant. And tasty! If I go again to Osaka one day got to try to find good restaurant from there as well.

 Took it with soba(stars indicate how fast they can deliver, not quality) with 2 toppings. Cheese and I think meat was second choise.

After tasty meal I read some more before jumping to the train heading toward Narita and from there local train to final destination.

Rice fields after rice fields.

 Long time not seen view but easy to remember. Nothing changed. School kids walking around just like last time.

 Rest of the night we spent chatting together along with his wife whom I met first time(they had met and married after we had last time met). Nice lady and was rather pleasant night over there. And they had prepared such a good dinner. Thank you is inadequate word in return.

Unfortunately all good things comes to end and eventually I had to head back to train to head back to Kanda. As it is arrived up very late(I think around 11PM) as it was. Nice to meet with him but he is rather far from Tokyo!

Saturday, 23th of April. Yet another meeting with familiar faces as I headed east on Tsukuba express train. Meeting with couple I had met first time in my first trip to Japan and every time I had been here. They are always too kind to me. This day I spent most of the time actually speaking Finnish rather than Japanese(or English) as they are quite fluent in the Finnish so good chance to give them chance to practice it :D I had got plenty of Japanese speaking practice in this trip already so return the favour here!

 Before heading out we had this lovely light meal.

Today we had two places to head and first was this HUGE Buddha statue wife had found out. Never heard of this before but sounded good enough so off we went.

You could see it already from quite far...That's a tall one!

 That's...Very tall. Over 100 meters actually.

 Volume of the real head is 1000 times bigger(note volume. Not height).

Holds guiness record for tallest bronze Buddha statue at 120 meters!

Seems this place is located close to the Warp station Edo we visited on my first trip to Japan.

 Interesting optical effect. This is above the gate leading to the statue. Clearly reflected on the window.

HUGE!

 Nice little park there as well. Probably stunning in cherry tree season.

 Unsurprisingly for Buddhist statue standing on a lotus pedals.

 The hand gestures are called "mudra" and each symbolizes something. Think both one are "gesture of argument" used when explaining Buddha's teachings. Could be wrong though. I'm hardly expert on those.

 Had to try how good my camera can zoom up. Pretty well I would say!

 Idea here is step over foot prints saying sound expressed in hiragana in each step. a-mi-da-bu-ddha aka Amida Budha.

 Inside the statue(unsurprisingly you can enter it) smaller replicas....

 ...And some photos of construction phase.

 Some paintings and explanations of Buddha's life.

 At the top level there were 3 slits. No matter what you looked you saw this exact same view. Interesting effect.

 Another camera zoom effect.

After this we headed toward the next place of interest. JAXA space center. JAXA being Japan's version of NASA. I have been interested in space since a kid(at one point dreaming of being astronaut :D) so when I one day learned JAXA had center you could visit near friend's place I decided that I would one day visit it and they joined along for a group trip there.

 Think this is replica of satelite.

 Another replica(?) I think.

 Hey. Space suits you can take photo of yourself. Obviously I had to try :D

 Bwahahaha! :D

 Okay I have to admit the astronauts have quite a lot to learn. This is just external handling grab controllers...Sheesh. So many buttons!

 Miniatures of all the rockets JAXA has used from 50's onward. Note the tiny one on left...That was basically start of it all as it was used to test out basics of rockets. Bit improved since :D

 Nice miniature globe of earth.

After we had came back we settled down for evening of conversation and made this Korean origin food. Rather easy to do and tasty! Yum yum.

Wife had also found out(again) nice tv program about 5 coloured lakes in bit north. Soooo pretty. Got to try to go there one of these days.