Nara

Chris at the Todaiji

Originally uploaded by neepster.

Another post from Japan a couple of weeks ago.

On Saturday we checked out of the hotel, checked our bags with the bell hop and took a train to Nara. Nara was the capital of Japan for 74 years starting in 710 AD, before the emperor got tired of the all the powerful Buddhist monks in Nara and decided to move to Kyoto. There are several very old and large Buddhist temples in Nara. The most famous is probably the Todaiji, an immense wooden building (supposedly the largest wooden building in the world) which contains the Daibutsu (Large Buddha). Given that we had limited time, I exercised my executive travel agent decision and decided we would concentrate on the Todaiji and the Daibutsu since we had to move to Hiroshima in the afternoon.

We arrived at Nara via the Kyoto to Nara JR train. Leaving Nara station, we wandered across the street to KFC because Mat was looking for some breakfast. After some chicken nuggets that tasted suspiciously like fish, we stepped outside for a photo op. The restaurant had Colonel Sanders dressed up like a jack-o-lantern and Mat just had to get a photo with him. After some KFC, we headed down the street towards the park and the Todaiji. Although Nara is in the mountains, it is not very high up and it was HOT. Almost as hot and sticky as Kyoto was. We walked up a commercial street past the Nara pagodas and into the park near the Todaiji. In the park we saw the first of the famous Nara deer. An older gentleman was being accosted by the deer and tried to send her our way. Further into the park, we took some more pictures and stopped to buy some deer food. Or, as the nice vendor said, “Bambi foodu desu”. The deer are smart and hang out near the vendors and then SWARM once they realize some sucker is actually buying food. After being accosted by multiple deer, we made our way down the street, past some vendors to the Todaiji and the Daibutsu. After several more deer pictures, we at last reached the Todaiji. We hung out around the front of this massive wooden structure, taking a lot of pictures before going inside to see the Daibutsu. Inside, we wandered around the Daibutsu, looking at the model they have of how the temple complex looked like originally, with some very large pagodas that have since burned down, then seeing the column with a hole in it that it is rumored that you will go to “heaven” in the afterlife if you can crawl through it. Apparently only the children will. At the end of the tour around the Daibutsu, Sriram and I donated for the new roof of the Daibutsu, getting to paint our names on the inside of a roof tile. So, in a hundred years or two hundred, or whenever they redo the roof, a worker will see our names :).

After that, we had to hurry back to Kyoto and get our bags and head to Hiroshima. We stopped just long enough for Sriram to buy a katana (non-sharp kind, as in Japan you have to have a permit to buy the sharp ones), giving rise to all sorts of Guantanamo jokes for the rest of the trip.