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Published: January 7th 2008
My last full day in Kansai ended with Chiaki, myself, and one of Chiaki's friends going all the way out to Nara for the day. Nara is about an hour train ride on the Kintetsu Line from Kyoto Station and is full of temples from the Nara Period of Japanese history. Chiaki bought a guide book and everything and planed out our entire day on the train ride down. We headed straight for Todai-Ji after leaving the station with the other tourists, foreigners and Japanese alike. We grabbed some kasurate; which is basically fried dough in the shapes of Hello Kitty, Pikachu, and Anapan Man, some tamako senbe and some shika senbe, for the huge amounts of deer that are in Nara and set out to feed some. Nara is famous for it's deer and how friendly they are. Basically they know the tourists will feed them so they aren't scared of anybody and will let you pet them....and then they will follow you for more food. It was pretty funny. Chiaki's friend was actually scared of them and started squealing when they came close to her. Chiaki and I thought it was hilarious.
Todai-Ji has the oldest temple gates
in all of Japan as well as one of the biggest Buddhas as well. It's absolutely beautiful and well worth a visit to see it. It's beautiful and very busy around this time of year. Everybody was taking pictures and praying. Inside there are these beautiful small wooden models of Todaiji that was built by prisoners while they were waiting to exit prison. They are absolutely beautiful. It amazes me how well made they are. There is also this pillar with a hole in it that if you can push yourself through it, it suppose to give you enlightenment. None of us went through it. I never would have made it through, but there was a little line of kids that were going through it. Since they were small enough to push themselves through, much to the happiness of their parents taking pictures and video of them.
After Todaiji we headed up to Nigatsu-do; which has the most amazing views of Nara with Todai-ji's main hall peaking out over the trees. It's architecture is very similar to Kiyumizu-dera in Kyoto and has a wide deck for looking over the view and praying. It also offers a small kisaten, a
traditional Japanese cafe, but it was closing when we came up to it. Nigatsu-do is just a small walk up a hill from Todai-ji's main hall and is actaully apart of the whole Todai-ji complex.
Our next stop was Kasuga Taisha for some more hatsumo-de chaos. They place was absolutely packed with people and because it was hatsumo-de the main hall wasn't open to the public so all we really did was pray and move along with the rest of the tourists. Chiaki and I did buy something special though. When traveling around to certain temples you can get a temple stamp put into a book for a small fee. The famous 88 temple hike in Shikoku has one of these at every temple to that hikers can show where they have stopped. There are at least 25 in the Kansai area that will put their temple stamp in your book for you. Chiaki was looking at them and when I asked her if that was what they were I got one as well. I now have 2 stamps in it and I want to fill it up with more. I've been added the romanji version of all the
temples so that I remember where they came from as well. They are absolutely beautiful and I kinda like looking at them. They are a very different reminder of my trip.
From Kasuga we headed to our last temple, Kofuku-ji. This complex used to be over 100 buildings in totaly but fire and destruction has only left 2 pagodas, the 5 story one being the second tallest in Japan, and a small temple. It is very beautiful and it was a good place to end out tour of Nara. Afterwards we ran into this very famous mochi shop where famous stars have come to get this highly prized mochi. We got to see them making it as well so I got to get some videos as well. It was very fun to watch all of it being put together.
After there we ran to fine some sarubobo. A sarubobo is an amulet that is from an old tradition that when a family member is sick the monkey; which is what 'saru' means, will take their sickness and die instead of them. We thought we could find them at any store but apparently that's not true. We stumbled upon
please??
this little deer wouldn't take food out of my hand. He would eat it if I threw it to it though. He was too young to know I wouldn't hurt it.this small museum/shop on our walk and I got a string of 3 to put by my front door to protect my family. While we were there he wrote me name on them and then gave me some cloth hangings as a free gift. This little museum wasn't in my LP but it was in the Forders guide, the owner was rather proud to show me it. All along the neighborhood families have these sarubobo hanging outside their homes to protect their family. The number of monkeys tells you how many people are in the family.
After a long day we headed back home to get some serious dinner, sukiyaki! It is a big hot pot full of veggies cooking together with meats in a broth on the table while you dip everything into a little bowl of scrambled raw egg. It was sooo good!! I love that stuff. Chiaki and her mother took me to lunch my last day and then Chiaki and I headed up to Kyoto station to catch my shinkansen back to Sendai. They were so very good to me. I say this is my favorite vacation yet.
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LebdaWhen
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What a great vacation
Kathryn - what a great vacation! I am so glad that you had the chance to see old friends and eat at some of your favorite places from your semester at school there. I have heard so much about these places that I still want to see Kyoto, Osaka and Kansai even if it is not when we come over this April. These are some great pictures - thanks for making the place real for the rest of us.