Up early on Wednesday for a visit to Nara. After picking up a picnic lunch of sushi bento boxes from the Isetan foodhall, we jumped on the rapid train and 45 minutes later alighted at Nara station, which was apparently being renovated and was consequently a bit of a scaffolded mass of semi-constructed tunnels.
Nara was Japan's capital from 710 to 784 AD while the country was undergoing a very strong Buddhist influence. Consequently there are a LOT of buildings and things designated National Treasures and like Kyoto, a large area forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We made our way up the main street, which was oddly dull. It was like a bad recreation of a 70s British High Street, with an inexplicable abundance of wedding dress shops. Fortunately, it wasn't long before we emerged at the other end into Nara Koen (Nara Park), and went in by the entrance leading straight to Kofuku-ji Temple and its impressive Five Story Pagoda. It's kind of unfortunate that from this day, very few of our photos came out very well as the light was very harsh and the sky very white.
Suddenly, we were surrounded by deer! Nara Koen is a deer park. There is a myth that a god came to Nara on a deer and so they are seen as envoys of a god and have protected status. They have gone wild all over the park though and today there are over 1000 of them.
We made our way through the crowds (people and deer) to Todai-ji Temple and followed the crowds through to the Daibutsu-den, the Great Buddha Hall, said to be the largest wooden structure in the world.
The Daibutsu-den houses the Daibutsu, Japan's largest bronze statue and one of the largest in the world, a 15 metre high Buddha on a throne. It was cast in the 8th century and almost bankrupted Japan as it used up most of the bronze supplies of the time. You can imagine it all you like but nothing prepares you for the scale of it as you walk through the door! You just don't get the same sense of it from the photos.
This one has a few people at the bottom to give you an idea. It was also really dark in the Daibutsu-den so the people are really over-exposed. The Buddha was looming in the dark. Mark didn't like the Daibutsu, he thought it wasn't good, just big, and big doesn't equal good. I liked it though.
We left the crowds at Todai-ji and headed deeper into the park, finding some beautiful secluded temple buildings on the hillside, where we stopped to eat our lunch in peace, looking out over Nara.
Had a lovely afternoon walking around yet more quiet bits of the path, regularly coming across beautiful little shrines and the occasional wandering deer.
Caught the train back as the sun began to set. The train went through some really pretty looking rural areas, which was lovely to see, as I was beginning to wander if all of Japan was just really industrial in its landscape! Had a great dinner back in Kyoto at Musashi in the city, a kaitensushi where all the dishes were 137 yen!! So cheap and so good!
After another cozy night on the futons, we woke on Thursday to a disappointing amount of rain falling outside our window. We headed down to the Imperial Palace under umbrellas to see if we could book on a tour inside, but the tour was unfortunately full. We headed back to Musashi, this time for lunch, to ponder a back up plan over more sushi, and decided to head down the road to Nijo-jo, a castle built as the Kyoto residence of a 17th century Shogun.
After being disappointed and dwelling on the fact we couldn't get into the Imperial Palace, we weren't expecting that much from Nijo-jo, but were actually really surprised by how good it was. You could go inside the castle (leaving shoes in the shoe racks at the door of course!) and walk around, and the inside was amazing. It was fascinating to see a building that was lived in, gives you a much different experience from the temples we had been to. It was all tatami mats and dark wood, gold and elaborately painted sliding doors. You weren't allowed to take photos inside, but it was quite good to be able to walk around in peace without flashes going off everywhere.
After the castle, we walked around the gardens a bit, it wasn't raining too much now and they were very pretty, with different sections done in different styles.
We headed out after a good look round and walked back into Kyoto to relax in Starbucks for a while and warm up. As it was our last night in Kyoto, we headed off to Sarasa, the cafe we went to on the second night and enjoyed so much, for beers, dinner and hot sake, then headed back for a moderately early night so as to be up for our 10.29am Shinkansen reservation the next day.
We both really came round to Kyoto in the end and were sad to leave. It's a great little city, more relaxed and easygoing than Tokyo, with what seemed like a great mix of scenery and outdoor stuff as well as great cafes and restaurants and culture.
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