Nara

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Today I went to the ancient capital of Japan, Nara. Nara served as Japan’s capital around the 8th century. Nara does not have the number of shrines and temples of Kyoto and is not a large city but has its own charm all the same and was one of my favorite places I have visited yet. Nara is filled with parks, and these parks and the surrounding city are filled and I mean filled with deer. I went to Nara with my friend Lisa who attended USF last year as an exchange student and is great. Nara has some of the oldest shrines and temples in Japan. Our first stop was Todaiji Temple Complex, maybe the most famous in Japan. Todaiji is home to the largest wooden building in the world, the Daibutsu-den, which is actually only two-thirds its original scale due to a fire in 1709. Inside Daibustu-den is a 53ft tall Buddha made of bronze. After leaving the Todaiji Complex, we went to Kasuga Taisha which is famous for its nearly 3000 stone lanterns lining the path up to it. We were also lucky enough to see a Shinto wedding being performed there which it seems is quite rare. Although with accordance to Shinto custom this shrine was originally founded in 768 then destroyed and rebuilt every 20 years the current structure dates to 1893. At Kasuga we also stopped in to visit a small museum there which housed many national treasures and items of cultural significance to Japan. There where a couple suits of armor and a few swords that were national treasures and quite beautiful. After that we went by Kofukuji which is a pagoda dating from around 710 which was actually built in Kyoto but later moved to Nara. After leaving Kofukuji we went to a small shrine near there which the name has esaped me since, but the man running it let us ring a huge bell there which was cool and at first I thought he was just really nice to call us over to do it but I think maybe he had his eye on Lisa because he did at one point, point out that her shirt was up a little in the back and she said he kind of poked her. So who knows but I got to ring the bell and that was cool. After that we went to eat at MOS burger a Japanese chain of fastfood mostly hamburgers and similar to McDonalds maybe just a bit healthier. After lunch we caught the bus to Horyuji. It was founded in 607 by prince Shotoku who is apparently one of the most famous people in Japanese history but I must be honest and say I have no idea who he is. The central 5-story pagoda is the original that was built in 607 though it was taken apart and reconstructed after WWII. Behind the Pagoda is a lecture hall which was rebuilt in 990 due to fire but that still makes it over 1000 years old, hard to contemplate. The second gate you pass upon entering Horyuji dates from 607 and is totally original making it nearly 1400 years old. It was a really great day in Nara and after getting back to Hirakata Lisa and I went out to eat and have a drink and since the local baseball team the Hanshin Tigers won their division in the pro league here there are many stores and restaurants with sales going on and all our drinks were half price, so cant beat that.

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Comments

[nate]

old school
hey man... that is pretty crazy how old everything is. hard to imagine when everything over here is only a few hundred