Nara 奈良, Japan Trip (Day 12)

7th January 2015, Wednesday

Nara Mascot

Today, we were going to Nara as today was a nice day, no rain. So we went down to have our breakfast and went out to take the trains to Nara. It took us almost 1 hour to reach Kintetsu-Nara station (not the JR-Nara station). Once you are out of the station, there was a long stretch of shops and restaurants. So we started walking to Todaiji Temple as this is the biggest temple and oldest in Nara. We first passed by Kofukuji Temple, but the temple was under construction and only a part of it was opened to the public. Anyway, there were many deers roaming around, really a lot and there was an old grandma and grandpa selling biscuits to feed the deers. The deers were like so hungry, they were coming at us when we arrived there. And they wanted food from us and they don't like people to touch them...The deers' horns were all cut off as not to injure themselves or passerby. Anyway we bought a stack of biscuits for $150 yen to feed the deers. The deers were chasing me for the biscuits and even pushed me from the back. I stopped there, all the deers came and tried to snatch the biscuits...seems like they were very very hungry for a long time. I tried to run away from all the deers and passed some biscuits to my friend to let her feed them. The biscuits went out very fast and when the biscuits were out, the deers were still trying to get some food out of us. Then we continued walking to the temple and we saw other people feeding the deers too. We even saw there were 2 deers head banging each other and the couple who were feeding them tried to stop them by throwing the biscuits at them.

Deers outside the entrance

Todaiji Temple

Giant Buddha Statue

Then we walked under a underpass tunnel and there were deers along the path we walked. We bought a hot sweet potato outside the national museum, it was quite expensive - $700 yen something for one. Hahaha....we were so worried the deers will start following us while we were eating the sweet potato. A couple of deers did actually followed until the temple's entrance. One was not going give up until we finished the sweet potato and went into the temple. When we reached the temple's entrance, there were much more deers there and there were many poos on the floor too. Then we went into the temple and bought the entrance tickets. The temple was quite big and inside the Daibutsuden hall, there was a giant statue of Daibutsu Buddha. We walked slowly to see the giant Buddha statue and other several Buddha statues there. We lighted 2 small candles too for our blessings. Besides the candles stand, there was a giant replica of the lotus petals from the giant Buddha statue. Behind the giant Buddha statue, there was a model of the whole temple layout from the original state until the present day. And the monks were collecting donations to rebuild the temple by giving $1000 yen for a tile which will be placed in the temple for rebuilding. We donated for one tile and I got to write blessing words on the tile too. After that, there were some more statues to see and we came to a wooden pillar. What interesting with this pillar, was that there is a hole in its base that is the same size as the Daibutsu's nostril. It is said that those who can squeeze through this opening will be granted enlightenment in their next life.

My tile

Hole in the Pillar

Pindola Bharadvaja

There was a small kid, like 2 or 3 years old, kept crawling in and out the hole...hohoho...Then a group of ang mo came along and one of the guys from their group, tall and skinny. He tried to go through the hole and he did it...He managed to squeeze through the hole. Then i decided to give it a try, so i tried to squeeze in the hole but my jacket was in the way. So i took off my winter jacket and tried again. I went in with my hands first and pushed my way through the hole. And i did it!! ^-^.....hehehee....After i got out from the hole, another small sized lady gave it a try and she also did it. We gave her a applause after she came out from the hole, we were having fun there....After that, we continued to explore the hall and there were some devotees in front of the giant Buddha statue to have some blessing ritual. Then we went outside and saw a wooden statue at the side. It was a statue of one of the Buddha's disciples - Pindola Bharadvaja and on the description, it stated that it was believed in Japan that if one person touches a part of the image of Binzuru and rubs the corresponding part of his own body, the aliment there will disappear. So we gave it a try too, i rubbed on my shoulders to get rid of my shoulders ache...hehehe.... After that, we went to buy some souvenirs and then we went outside of the temple to walk. There was a very tall gold tower at the side of the temple, it was the On Asoka Pillar, the monument in commemoration of The "Thousand-Priests" service. There was a time capsule containing all the names of the participants and the messages for the Future written by the followers buried under it and this will only be opened in year 2038 which is the 1500th anniversary of the introduction of Buddhism to Japan (can consider to come here again in this year..heheee).

View from above

My lunch...Yummy!!

Then we continued walking upwards to explore the area, there were a couple of smaller temples on top. Most of the temples also need to pay entrance fees and we just went into those that doesn't need to pay.... :P
We went up one temple, which was having a great view on Nara from above. After spending some time on the top, we walked back down and we just walked without any specific directions in mind. Then we walked along the road and decided to walk to Isuien/ Yoshikien gardens. We walked past a house which looked the residence of the government. We walked further down to reach Isuien Garden but it required $650 yen to go in and the tea set looked expensive and there was no main courses. So we didn't went in, instead we went walked further in until i saw an owl statue. Then we stopped and took a look, it was a soba restaurant. So we took a look on the menu too, the pictures on the menu were quite plain and the colors had also faded. But we went in already, cos too hungry. There was no one in the restaurant and on the right side were tables and chairs and on the left side were the Japanese style seating. So i chose to sit on the ground and we asked the lady owner to recommend us their dishes. I had hot soda while my friend had cold soba, the food was very nice. And the tempera was nice, with their salt. And after we were done with the soba, the staff brought us the tea to let my friend drink. The staff said the tea was always taken after finishing the cold soba.

Five Storied Pagoda

Apple Pie with Ice Cream

Deers in Led Illumination

Dinner, Yummy!!!

After the nice meal, we thanked the staff and went walking towards the train station. We went back to Kofukuji Temple but the main hall was under renovation. So we went to see the five storied pagoda which was the national treasure and the three storied pagoda. After visiting the pagodas, we walked back to the shopping street near Kintetsu-Nara station. We went into Daiso and then we went into MacDonald's to hide from the wind. We had twister fries and apple pie with ice cream and we just stayed there until 5 plus or 6 pm. Then we walked on the same route to Todaiji Temple and all the deers were not around anymore, don't know where their homes were. We went to the night illumination which 100 thousands led lights were being used and we had to walk to the botanic gardens to see it. But it cost $1000 yen per pax for the entrance fees... :(... Anyway we bought the tickets and went in to see the lights, there wasn't many people around (only like 4 people including us). The led lights were quite nice to see there, there was a trishaw and some deers, all having led lights on them. Other than these, there wasn't anything much attracting. We spent about an hour walking inside the garden and we went off, went out looking for dinner. We came upon a dinning restaurant and ordered a pork cutlet rice set to share. After having the dinner, we went off trying to find direction to walk to JR Nara station. At first, there was some signs to direct to the JR station but at a point, there was no more signs. So we asked a lady for directions and the lady was kind enough to tell us the directions though she was having some difficulty talking to us in English.

Pudding Roll Cake

Milk & Chocolate Puddings

So we followed the directions and walked to the station and we did managed to reach there safe and sound...hahhaa...The station was big and there was a mall connected to it too. We went inside to explore and saw a shop selling puddings and cakes. The puddings' bottles were having a cute Buddha image printed on the cap. We bought 2 puddings to go back to eat, we also wanted to buy their roll cakes but it was sold out for the day. My friend was a bit disappointed as we won't be back to buy it. And with this, we took the JR train back to go back to our hotel. The puddings were nice and yummy too!

Hotel Stayed:
Humor Resort New Oriental Hotel