Nara

Day 244 – Deer and dearest

Shouko had told us that one of her favourite sites in Kyoto was Heian Jingu, so we headed out there in the morning.  The sun was already out in full force, but the gardens provided a bit of shade so it wasn’t too bad.  Coincidentally we bumped into Jane and Per again, they were on the bridge over the lake feeding the fish and terrapins. 

Massive Torii Gate at the entrance to the temple.

Another really helpful sign.

   

After swinging back by Tommy Rich Inn to collect our things we headed for the train to Nara.  I’d booked a hotel right next to the station, but we were there half an hour before check-in time so we browsed in the local bookshop for a little while.  When we got to the front desk the guy informed us that we had in fact booked into a different ‘Super Hotel’ 20 minutes walk away.  This came as a bit of a rude surprise, especially given the heat.  So we grumpily trudged away from all the tourist attractions towards our hotel.  When we got there they had given us two adjoining rooms, strange, but ultimately quite spacious!

We now faced a twenty minute walk back into town to where the self-guided walking tour we had planned to do started.  The first sight to greet us on the walk was a city park full of deer.  It turned out that they not only occupied this particular park, but practically rule the city, they’re everywhere and quite tame.

Watch out in case they ‘bite’, ‘kick’, ‘butt’ or ‘knock down’!

Deer and dearest.

They do keep the lawns looking nice.

Next stop was Todaiji, the world’s largest wooden building, which houses Japan’s largest Buddha statue.  The building was arguably more impressive than the statue.

“This big.”

On the hill behind Todaiji was Kasuga Taisha, a temple complex surrounded by thousands of lanterns.  Unfortunately we were here at the wrong time of year to see them all lit, but as it was late in the day the place was pretty quiet and weather a little more moderate.

All walked out we found ourselves an Okonomiyaki Restaurant and collapsed down for a beer.  The rather glum waiter cooked our meals for us on the hotplates on our table, (rightly) not trusting us to do it ourselves and not burn them, make a huge mess or both.

A hard earned thirst deserves a nice cold beer and the best cold beer is… well whatever comes in a glass bigger than your head really.

 

On the way home we stopped to test a beer vending machine, had to buy two or three just to be sure it was working properly, all good.

Outside our hotel all the local birds had settled onto the power lines to roost, they were making quite a racket but looked good framed against dusk.