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Published: October 29th 2009
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Like the ancient city of Kyoto which for most of its history was the Imperial capital of Japan, Nara was once itself the Heijo-kyo national capital from the year 710. It then grew to become a centre of culture, politics, art and crafts. Any of you film buffs thinking of traveling to Nara might consider doing so to be there between 25-29 August 2010 for the Nara International Film Festival. What do you think Carol - go for it?
As I write this we're speeding along on a JR train from Kyoto to Nara and like all Japanese trains it left dead on time at 8.36am. Along the tracks in-between the towns, which house factories and many new buildings, there are also more traditional houses but not many of the tall apartment buildings which appear elsewhere. Many of the houses between Kyoto and Nara have beautiful traditional tiled roofs; washing and bonsai gardens are on most of the balconies with bikes stashed everywhere. On every spare patch of ground vegetable gardens grow which appear to be tended by the older people. So much for what we saw on the way - by the time we reached Nara the sun was shining
out of an almost cloudless sky - another red hat day!
Once we'd fueled ourselves up with a cup of coffee at the first cafe we found we followed the Nara explorer recommended walking courses, consequently wearing ourselves out in the process - we must have walked at least 10 kms during our visit. First we went to the Kofuku-ji Temple which houses the second biggest pagoda in Japan. We purchased tickets to see a couple of exhibitions being shown in a two different halls. Queuing in the sun alongside numerous others doing the same thing we were lucky enough to have a Japanese man in front of us who spoke a little English. It's always far more interesting talking to the locals rather than other tourists. We then walked through Nara park - famous for the deer which roam around everywhere - on to Todai-ji Temple which really was impressive. A huge ancient wooden building contained a huge gold Budda. Well if we thought there were lots of groups of school-children in Kyoto it had nothing on Nara - they were everywhere, from kindergarten level to high school students. While it was impossible to get away from them we
found it very interesting - Japanese school-children are obviously taught a lot about their culture and history. It was then on to some more temples where we climbed up the many stairs to gain a great view over the city.
After walking though some of the forest area which is part of Nara Park, next to the Nara Museum was an area set up something similar to the Night Noodle Markets in Sydney's Hyde Park. So we bought a beer and some food on sticks - one made with potatoes which was delicious, one which was mostly vegetables mixed together with some kind of paste which was not too bad and one made out of fish with a spongy texture which I didn't like at all. We followed all that with a piece of apricot tart and coffee. The whole area had a nice atmosphere about it where a good time was had by all!
By the time we got back to Nara station we were glad to be able to sit down for an hour on the train. Not long after arriving back at our ryokan we headed for the bathroom for showers and a soak in a Japanese
style bath - just what the doctor ordered!!
That was yesterday - as I write this we're now on a Shinkansen (bullet train) bound for Nagasaki, speeding along at some great speed. Kev noted that the fastest we travelled was 320 kms an hour!! Having told you that it now seems like the ideal time to make some observations about public transport. During our bus travels around Kyoto we noticed that bus drivers turn off their ignition every time they stop at red lights, presumably to cut down on carbon emissions. You alight onto buses from the back door, then pay or insert your pre-paid ticket at the front of the bus as you leave. When someone with a wheelchair gets on the bus the driver comes to help if necessary and it all looks very easy to maneuver. School-children use the buses in droves of course - we saw a little girl who looked no more than six years old at the most travelling on the bus all on her own. She was very cute in her neat school uniform complete with a very jaunty hat. Obviously she'd made the self same journey before as she expertly showed the
driver her bus pass on the way out!
Despite the news we've heard in Australia that Japan has been one of the worse effected countries since the global economic crisis hit we haven't seen that much evidence of it - at least not so far. As we boarded our train this morning there were salary-men and woman scurrying here, there and everywhere and there are certainly lots of them on our train. So far we've only seen evidence of one homeless person - there were a few clothes in a little pile at the entrance to Kyoto station. A few people left little offerings of food - another lesson learnt!! Be kind to each other.
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Neta
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I love the autumn foliage.