Nara: deer and mystic forest

Friday, April 11, 2014
Nara, Kinki, Japan
This morning we checked out of our charming ryokan, thanked the owners and walked to the train station. There we had some breakfast (those amazingly tasty sandwiches), booked the seats in an evening train to Kanazawa and finally took a train to Nara, the first permanent capital of Japan.

Nara is a small city and all of its most touristy spots can be easily covered on foot . So, after arriving there, we simple left our luggage at the tourist office near the train station and walked to Nara Park, where hundreds of semi-wild deer live. The deer are considered to be messengers of gods in Shinto religion, so they have been given the free roam of the park and now they only view humans as a source of food and mild nuisance. A deer might walk up to you if it thinks you have food (deer crackers that are sold throughout the park) and even bow respectfully. If you don't have any food, deer will ignore you and walk away lazily. I've grabbed them by ears, noses, heads and antlers and at most they just pull away annoyed and don't even try to run away.

After touching and photographing some deer, we walked to the massive building of Todai-ji temple, main hall of which is the largest wooden building in the world. The enormous building houses a giant statue of Cosmic Buddha, who is sitting on a huge lotus flower and doing whatever a Buddha is supposed to be doing . The hall's size is quite impressive, especially from a distance with comparison to tiny humans crawling around it.

Having visited the main sight in Nara, we walked to one of the lesser known places: Yoshikien Garden. This small garden features three unique gardens: pond garden, moss garden and tea ceremony flower garden. A small elegant tea house is located in a quiet isolated spot of Yoshikien.

Then we had some soba noodles for lunch and walked to a famous Shinto shrine Kasuga Taisha. This shrine is located in a dense ancient forest right next to Nara Park and paths leading to it are lined with hundreds of stone lanterns. These lanterns are donated by the worshippers and are lit twice a year. They make an unforgettable impression, standing in rows like silent sentinels, covered with moss and hieroglyphs, tall and short, old and new, some made of stone and some with wooden parts. In the inner shrine there are thousands of bronze lanterns, also waiting to be lit on lantern festival . Behind the main shrine, there are several smaller auxiliary shrines for twelve lucky gods.

When we walked through the forest and emerged into the city again, it looked extremely rural, there was even a small rice field. We took a peek at Shin-Yakushi-ji temple, which was already closing and also walked by a modern building of Nara Photography Museum. Then we walked through narrow peaceful streets back to the park, by a lake with huge carps and white herons and to the train station. We picked up the luggage, bought a bento for the road and took a train to Osaka station and another train from Osaka to Kanazawa. Here we took a short taxi ride to a ryokan, checked in and found some internet.
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Comments

Irina
2014-04-12

Red parasol is very romantic.

2025-02-11

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