Blogs from Nara, Japan, Asia
March 16th 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012 Today we were up early. We were checking out of the Hilton Osaka a day early. We decided since our trip was delayed a day, we should go back to Tokyo to visit a few more sites before returning home. After a quick breakfast, we headed to the train station to go to Nara. The train ride should only take 45 minutes, however not today. It took two hours. We are not sure what happened, but we think either our train had an issue or there were other trains delaying our trip. This is our second trip to Nara. We visit here in 2002. Today we are visiting the Todaiji Temple, Kasuga Taisha Shrine, Three Story Pagoda, and several deer on the way. Nara is a fairly large city, however ... read more
February 10th 2012
Sadly this is our last Blog for Japan as after Osaka and Nara we headed up to Happo One for a few days of ski-ing, which was amazing fun but not really worth blogging about. We had an evening in Osaka which is famous for its food and is said to be the food capital of Japan. Its two most famous dishes are blowfish (and you can see live blowfish swimming in the tanks outside most of the restaurants) and octopus ball dumplings called Takoyaki which are sold everywhere and are delicious. Osaka is often called the working heart of Japan is a modern urban city that lacks the sights of Tokyo but well worth a couple of nights, as like most Japanese cities it seems to come alive in the evening. After Osaka we took ... read more
November 4th 2011
Day 1 - Nara We slept well last night after arriving at our motel just after 8pm. It's a very basic room but clean and considering the budget price we're getting it for, quite satisfactory. Today we decided to brave the subway/train system. We were going to head back to Tennoji because we were going to get Kansai Train Passes there but we couldn't find how to get there from our subway station so we decided to head out to Nara instead. It was a very hot, humid day as we walked up the hill towards the deer park and it wasn't long before we got our first close encounter with a deer - or 4. Caitlyn bought these biscuit looking things that a street vendor was selling as deer food and as soon as she ... read more
September 19th 2011
Introduction Quite often, first time visitors to Japan are directed towards Kyoto as it does have the more famous sights. I can only blame myself, but I also fell victim to this and visited Kyoto three times and I enjoyed the sights a lot and continued to put Nara off as a second rate Kyoto and never went there as more important sights were left to explore elsewhere. When I finally made it to Nara, it was like a revelation: Instead of rushing from one side of a typical urban Japanese town to the other to catch the sights like in Kyoto, everything was located in or around Nara Park and the sights in Nara are first class, no matter what people might tell you. We were lucky, as it was a gloomy November day, the ... read more
September 9th 2011
We decided to take another day trip, and as Nara was only a 30 minute subway ride away thought we would go see what all the fuss was about. We walked along the main street to Nara-kōen, the park where most of the sights are located and first stopped off to see the five story pagoda. All around us were the towns no1 attraction – deer . There are hundreds of wild deer wondering around the town hanging out at the major attractions waiting for tourists to purchase ‘deer cookies’. We of course bought some cookies for the deer and were immediately surrounded…. We walked on to Tōdai-ji temple which houses a giant Buddha. As we were walking back out one of the deer snatched an unsuspecting Angelo’s tourist map from his hand and started to ... read more
June 9th 2011
Spent my last few days of japan in the mountain in the middle of nowhere! Took us about 6hrs to get down there but so worth it to get out the cities and thought we might actually be able to get somewhere without getting lost.. no, not quite! But there were rivers, mountains, waterfalls and onsens round every corner. We were staying with an American who was living in this village and teaching English in a lot of the schools. His pad was on the school grounds which was pretty cool because we got our fill of kids we’d been missing! All we had to do was leave the front door and have them all waving and shouting anything they knew in English at us! And the ‘couch’ this time was wiked.. big futon, duvet, pillows! ... read more
February 16th 2011
Kyoto and Nara are 2 of Japan's ancient capitals both located in the Kansai region. And like sisters, one is more popular and considered prettier than the other. The prettier one to most people would be Kyoto, which most of the time, top the must see places in a travelers list. While Nara may always be on the places to go to list, it will never beat Kyoto on the top spot and sometimes travelers will only consider going there, if they still have spare time. Kyoto for me is a very beautiful place, but Nara too has its charm that one can never see in Kyoto. I for one tend to ignore this Nara charm, when I visited it 3 years ago with a friend of mine from the States. It was spring then, so ... read more
Photo Collection: Nara - the older capital than Kyoto
Published: January 29th 2011Asia » Japan » Nara » Yamato
January 29th 2011
Nara (http://narashikanko.jp/en/index.html) was the very first capital of the country before Kyoto from 7th century. It takes about 40 minutes to get down there from Kyoto by train. It isn't as dynamic and exciting as Kyoto in terms of travel activity. But maybe more historic and less commercial than the new capital. It is definitely worth checking out. ... read more
January 29th 2011
Nara is famous for having seven great temples. Today, my friend (who finally had a day off) and I decided to hit up Nara’s temples and check out the deer (鹿(しか)) (shika). In Nara, the deer are revered and considered sacred, so they meander across streets, through parks, and around the temples. It’s considered a criminal offense to molest a deer, or feed it anything other than せんべ (senbe – rice cakes). There were vendors selling senbe at various sections of the great temples, so I bought a couple of stacks to feed the deer. It was fun, if not a bit unnerving to be surrounded by hungry deer nibbling at your hands and clothing. I managed to feed the deer with nothing more than a sharp headbutt to my hind thigh, and then we made ... read more
December 25th 2010
Day 20 December 25, 2010 Kyoto & Nara We took a 30 minute train ride from Kyoto to Nara, which used to be Japan’s capital prior to it being moved to Kyoto. Nara was a much smaller city where about half the city was made up of a park. The park had hundreds if not thousands of “sacred” deer that walk freely around the park looking for food. In the park we saw the Kofukuji temple which has a 5 story pagoda, the Todaji temple, and the Kasuga Taisha Shrine. Though they were all nice to see, the Todaji Temple was clearly the showcase for us. Inside it has the largest (gilded) bronze Buddha in the world. It was a humungous statue that if I remember correctly was casted back in the 8th century. After seeing ... read more
