Today we went to Nara with a couple of people from my hostel. We got up really early because we were to head out by 9am. Erin and I met up with Joanna and Christine (the two people we were going with) in the common room of our hostel and then we made our way to some breakfast. On the way to the bus stop we needed we saw a café called God Mountain. I thought the name was interesting. Anyway, we grabbed some food there and then got on the bus Joanna said we should get on. It turned out that that bus took us in the opposite direction of Kyoto station so when we got off we all had a laugh at Joanna and then got on the right bus.
Once we finally made it to Kyoto station we got on the Nara line to, of course, go to Nara. We managed to get a rapid so we had nice cushy seats and we got booths. I took one and Erin, Christine and Joanna took the other. We talked for a bit and then I, as usual, fell asleep until we got to Nara.
When we got to Nara station we headed for the massive park full of temples.
I saw some Jizo. Note: to meet the requests of some I will now be putting the picture captions under the pictures they belong to. end note
We made our way up the steps toward the first temple and I thought the steps were cool.
Anyone need to go to the Labatory?
While the girls were buying souvenirs I sat down to clean my lenses because I noticed they were dirty and then took some pictures.
We walked a little farther and noticed a large group of people and deer. It was kind of funny.
Erin made a friend.
I made a friend.
Erin got some deer food and then got mobbed.
This kid made some kind of mistake. He freaked out a little bit. It was funny.
We made our way through some more of the park and I took some more pictures as we walked.
I thought this sign was interesting.
This grandma and her little grandson tried to feed some deer. He kept running away, but I guess I don’t really blame him. I probably would have too. Anyway, it was cute.
We finally made our way to the biggest temple in the place, this was just the entrance to the grounds.
And I thought the deer were mobbing the other kid. Jeez…
Teacher! The deer ate my homework!!! I have pictures to prove it!
I had a good laugh at that.
This is the inside of a really old gate like thing into the temple. It was rather impressive.
Another thing that impressed me was the sheer amount of school children.
As we went deeper the deer started to thin out, thankfully, and so did the school children… kind of.
The outer wall of the temple. We had to walk around to the side and then pay 5 bucks to get in, but man was it worth it.
Say hello to what we paid 5 dollars to see and the main event; Todai-ji. It is the largest all wooden structure in the world and houses a huge bronze statue of Buddha.
Hurray!
Erin lighting incense.
The huge, 15 meter tall, statue of Buddha.
Another huge, cool statue. I am not sure who it is.
A scale model of the whole temple complex.
There is this one column with a hole in the bottom. It is said that if you crawl through it you will have good luck. This poor kid was trying to crawl through and was getting pushed by his friend and pulled by his teacher.
Looks like it didn’t feel too good.
The temple grounds.
Feet at the Buddhist temple; my camera's battery died after this, so no more pictures.
We left that temple and explored the rest of the complex and park while also looking for food. We saw a couple more, smaller temples and then it started raining, but that didn’t slow us down too much.
At some point we all decided that we were exhausted and had seen enough so we made out way back to the station. Along the way we stopped at this nice, cheap udon (thick noodle) place and ate lunch. Mine was udon with egg and vegetables, it was delicious. Once we finished eating we went to the station and got on the train for Kyoto where I once again fell asleep. It is a talent, you know, falling asleep on trains. Not everyone can do it.
When we got back to Kyoto it was around dinnertime so we went back to the hostel, parted ways with Christine and Joanna, and then went to a kaitensuzhi for dinner. The kaitenzushi we went to was amazing. It even beat the really good place in Asakusa. Plus, it had eel, which is my favorite. Another thing that made the place great is that everything was the same price, 137 yen, so it was cheap and made things easy to add up.
After sushi we went back to the hostel and hung out in the common room with some of the other guests. I also ended up showing some of my pictures to people in the hostel and they seemed to like them so I was happy.
1 comment:
Oh, I get it. Nara = deer. Thanks Naruto. That's pretty neat how the area is like one giant petting zoo. In other ways it's insane, but looks like it works well enough.
Shinannigans. I have never received any kind of GOOD fortune from crawling into a hole. Does that kid look like he gained anything good from this hole? No.
That looked like a full day. Did any of the deer take a go at your camera?
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