Just Doing It in Nara

---

Geo: 34.685, 135.805

Today was a day of hills, stairs and a deer attack! We caught a train this morning to Nara which is about an hours train ride from Kyoto. Before we left home we had researched what sites we wanted to see and when we reached there this morning the woman in the tourist information routed us around the city to see exactly the places we had planned to visit. Only in our research we were not aware that all these locations were up hills or stairs. We continually kept climbing until our return trip to the train station.

Let me explain a little about the history of the deer. According to legend, when Kasuga Taisha Shrine was founded as a family shrine for the Fujiwaras, a dominant aristocrat clan in the 8th century, they invited a mighty god from the Kashima Shrine. The god is said to have come to Nara riding on a white deer. Since then, the deer have been respected and protected as divine messengers by local people. About 1200 wild deer roam around freely. So after having just climbed a hill on the way to our first destination i was surrounded by deer and they began to eat my map, much to my dismay. They ate the section in which we would spend the rest of the day so I had to go back down the hill to get a replacement. Needless to say I was very careful the rest of the day whenever the deer were around and that was almost always!

Our first stop was the Todaiji Temple. This is a Buddhist Temple which was founded in the 8th century. Then we moved on to Nigatsudo Hall and Sangatsudo Hall where there were spectacular views of the city below. From here we wandered to Wakakusayama Hill. All this time we are continually climbin
! Still with deer all around! Kofukuji Temple was visited. I was originally founded in the 7th century. The five story pagoda, a symbol of Nara City was reconstructed about 600 years ago after it had burned down 5 times. The entire area has shrines, temples, gardens, museums and gates all throughout. There are parks also with ponds.
It was a beautiful area!

Upon completion of our touring it was time for a late lunch. We stopped for a bowl of noodle soup which seemed like it was endless. It had noodles, bean sprouts, green onions, bamboo shoots and mushrooms. Oh, I forgot, it had roast pork in it too. Delicious!

We returned to Kyoto on a late afternoon train. After a short rest we returned to the area by the river to again wander the streets and see more of the area we had not seen yesterday. It was another great day in Japan!

---

Comments

[amy]

I can't wait to show the kids the pictures of the deer, too cool.

[?????????]

Oh deer! Sure there wasn't venison in that soup? Interesting that you can go from 7th century temples to shopping at the Disney store in the same day.