The next morning was really really cold. Everything besides sleeping quarters is unheated so with temperatures around the freezing point it was a rude awakening (and getting up at 5:30 in the morning is a rough wake up – period). Somehow somebody managed to throw a pillow (filled with grains or something) through one of the paper walls – oops. But we were allowed to take part in the morning ceremony of the temple none the less. The high priest of the temple led the ceremony and afterwards we all got a divine blessing from him (perhaps I should have had him bless my teeth instead of the trip and flight) and we had breakfast. I ditched the misu soup and the rice and went for the fruit salad and tea (yes, shoot me). After a while some monk came in telling us that there was coffee: within seconds the eating hall was deserted.
After that we had a bit of spare time to prepare but as it was freaking cold and I didn’t fancy going up the mountain again (the last place to explore) I stayed with most of the group in the sleeping quarters where it was nice and warm. After some time we gathered outside and set off to the bus. After we reached the station we could jump straight into the next train which took us to Nara where we visited the largest temple made out of wood in the world (or so I’m told).
After we determined that the Japanese had too much spare time on their hands and we paid our respect we walked back to the station through all the deer. Deer? Yes deer. The streets are filled with deer from a huge park which runs up to the temple which has no fences allowing the deer to roam freely. 
By the looks of it there are pretty used to people as they are not scared of humans at all.
After we got back we bought lunch to take on the train and that’s when my tooth came off – see my blog posting called Old-skool…