Thursday 16th April - Nara

After a relatively short journey from Kyoto, i arrive in Nara fairly early on the Thursday morning. I am excited to be hre. Nara is Japan's oldest & most traditional city. It is home to many temples/shrines/parks & deer.

I take my stuff to the guesthouse, grab a map n immediately set off to the park. The park has over 7 temples, various woodland areas, numerous shrines, museums and wildlife. The whole area is not extremely big & you can walk around in one day, 2 days if you want to check everything out.

I walk straight over to the Todaiji Temple,Tōdai-ji is a Buddhist temple complex. Its Great Buddha Hall, the largest wooden building in the world,houses the world's largest statue of the Buddha Vairocana, known in Japanese simply as Daibutsu (大仏). The temple also serves as the Japanese headquarters of the Kegon school of Buddhism. The temple is a listed UNESCO World Heritage Site as "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara", together with seven other sites including temples, shrines and places in the city of Nara. Sika deer, regarded as messengers of the gods in the Shinto religion, roam the grounds freely. The building of Todaiji Temple can be traced back as early as 728AD when Emperor Shōmu established Kinshōsen-ji (金鐘山寺) as an appeasement for Prince Motoi, his first son with his Fujiwara clan consort Kōmyōshi. Prince Motoi died a year after his birth.

Todaiji as sufferend many ill fates throughout history and has had to be reconstructed on many occasions, always close to its originally state and never without cxmpromising the statues held within. The Daibutsu statue is;

* Height: 14.98 m (49.1 ft)
* Face: 5.33 m (17.5 ft)
* Eyes: 1.02 m (3.3 ft)
* Nose: 0.5 m (1.6 ft)
* Ears: 2.54 m (8.3 ft)

The statue weighs 500 tonnes (550 short tons).

The temple is exquisite, beautifully crafted and grande. You feel at peace throughout the grounds, even with the many tourists around, you can get lost in your own world. I leave Todaiji and am lucky enough to sdtumble on some shool choir singing the most beautiful song in Japanese on the entrance to the temple. Many people have gathered round and a crowd is forming listening to them sing. I atek some photos as i watch people getting frisked by the deers.

After I make my way through the park and up to its highest point which has an amazing view of Nara. I continue walking around the park through the many trees & greenways. It takes a few hours to walk around so i head back to the guesthouse as i want to leave some of the other side of the walk for the other days.

I end up meeting a few people back in the house and we go out for a nice Indian meal. Makes a change after all the Japanese food & is delicious! - They were serving beer in there for only 500 yen. The cheapest i have found in a restaurant anywhere. Bargain.

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Part of trip: Oriental Madness on the Lawski Express

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