Cats Deer, and gates.. so many gates

June 10, 2013

Yesterday we felt a little pressure to see as much as possible but today we wanted to take it easy and not rush. We left the house the same time as Jen (7:30) and caught the Shinkansen (or as Ben has started calling it, the Shinkenshank) back to Kyoto. From there we changed to a local JR train to Nara, which is famous for its deer (which is obvs why we wanted to go there because you can pet them and they just hang out in the park and near one of the temples). It was another beautiful day, a little bit overcast in the morning, not unbearably hot, and not too humid. It was about a 20 minute walk from the station to Nara Park, which has many temples and shrines. 

We had barely made it into the park and there were a bunch of deer just hanging out napping under some trees. Of course we went over and I was petting a deer and I touched its antlers, which were fuzzy like a peach, and the deer was just chillin’ and didn’t mind at all. On the way to the park we had picked up some snack for the walk, and when Ben held his hand out to one of the deer it started licking his hand with some gusto; I guess his hand was salty and delicious from the mixed nuts he ate earlier. A deer also licked my hand with its little deer tongue.

We decided to meander our way through the park towards the Kasuga Taisha Shrine before looping back to see Todaiji Temple.  There were quite a few school groups in the park also headed toward the shrine and they were kicking up an annoying amount of dust along the path, so we tried to avoid them as best we could; they were also loud and irritating like Western children, not subdued and respectful as I thought Japanese children would be. We made it to the shrine but didn’t bother paying to get in since we had already been to many shrines (which were free), so we headed towards Todaiji. 

We ended up taking a bit of a round-about route and found another neat shrine with a bunch of other buildings surrounding it along the way. We also saw some crazy Japanese “cowboys” wearing leather chaps and belts with holsters for their wallet and cell phone.

The Todaiji Temple is the largest wooden structure in the world and houses a Buddha that is 15 meters tall, which sounds pretty big, but seeing the temple and the Buddha in person was truly awe-inspiring; pictures cannot depict how large the temple and the Buddha really are. Knowing how old they are as well is just unreal. I can say without a doubt that Todaiji was absolutely the coolest thing we have seen in Japan so far.

 There were also lots of students in the temple who were staring at Ben and pointing at him. At one point I was taking a picture and Ben was standing beside me; there was this kid standing next to Ben and a little behind who I say signaling to his friend to take a picture. I asked him if he wanted a picture with Ben and the kid was so stoked, and then the floodgates opened. As soon as the other kids saw us inviting a picture to be taken with Ben, EVERYONE wanted a picture. We ended up doing several group shots and the kids were excited and happy to practice their English with us.

So far we haven’t really picked up much in the way of souvenirs, but we had so much fun at the temple that we ended up getting a medallion with the Todaiji Temple on one side and “Nara” and a deer on the other side. We also custom stamped it with “Ben and Alissa Japan” and the date.

On the way back to the train station (which was also a search for food, I was in the mood for an ebi sandwich), we were stopped by a group of students who wanted to ask questions for their English class. They were a little more unorganized than the group we spoke to at the Golden Pavilion but managed to ask all their questions and take a picture with us. They also gave us a letter from their English teacher and asked for our address, maybe they will write to us?

We ended up eating at the train station at Mos Burger, which is one of two large burger chains in Japan, the other being Freshness Burger. I had an ebi burger with fries and onion rings and Ben had double bacon pork burger with cheese. They seem to like their pork burgers here (and I’m sure if we go to another burger place Ben will choose the pork burger there too).

The train back to Kyoto was about 45 minutes long, so we grabbed some water and wasabi flavoured Pringles for the ride.

We got back to Kyoto at around 4-4:30pm and decided to see one of the sites we missed the day before: Fushimi Inari. Conveniently, the train left from the same track we arrived back in Kyoto on and it was only two stations away. When we got to the station, Fushimi Inari was right across the road, so no wandering and searching to find the right place. 

We walked up through the red gates for probably half an hour before we came to a map billboard that showed different checkpoints, and we were still another 45 minutes from the top! I had no idea the area was so large and that there were that many gates, pretty crazy stuff. Along the way we also saw several cats and one of them was really friendly and wanted love.

After another really long day of walking, we decided to head back to Nagoya. We got back at about 7:30pm and started organizing our stuff and packing. Ben also downloaded the season finale of Game of Thrones for us to watch so I wouldn’t have to avoid Facebook because of spoilers (so thoughtful of him).