Sunday, October 9, 2011

Final full day in Japan, Part 1 - Nara's Todai-ji Temple and the BIG Buddha

By the time my mother and I left Kyoto, I was feeling pretty travel-weary. We got to Nara with plenty of time to do something that evening, but I just couldn't manage the oomph to do so!

The next morning, however, I was able to enjoy a bit more about our setting, Hotel Nara. It's located right in the main park that is at the center of the city. And it's a lovely old building that many politicians and other famous folks have stayed. Oh, and there's deer right out the window! Did I mention that deer are considered heavenly animals in Nara, so you can't hurt them in any way? So they live and breed and breed and get fed by visitors and are very tame and even aggressive sometimes. And they're EVERYWHERE. They even have doors on some of the public bathroom entrances so that deer don't go in!

Right, so Hotel Nara is lovely. I got some shots of the interior, but here I am outside:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

For more photos of the hotel, and the whole day in Nara, Click Here!

And we did have a great breakfast at the hotel, as well. I went with the Japanese breakfast which was too much good food for me to eat, but I enjoyed trying everything!

Japanese breakfast:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

After eating, packing, and checking out, we walked down the hill and across to the center of the park. Of course we encountered many deer along the way.

Here I am on the central path in the park with deer behind me:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

And here's mom when a nice man gave her some unwrapped acorns to feed the deer. I just missed the point where she was feeding it!
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Once we got to the temple area, the first thing I noticed was the insane number of school groups. Of all ages. The first little ones we saw were so cute!

Littlest tourists:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

And then as we got further into the area, there were older ones. And they were all about feeding the deer and taking pictures with them.

A group of school girls try to pose with the deer before the deer come after them (no really, the deer start to come after the kids for the cookies they have!):
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Then we got further down the street and the gate started to appear. The gate is BIG. Really big.

Here I am on the path to the gate:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

And here I am next to one of the columns in the front of the gate. See, I told you it was big!
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Here's the mayhem of kids+deer in front of the gate:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Mom with the gate behind her:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

And then you walk through the gate. And so do the deer:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Once through the gate, you expect to see a big buddha face, as the whole point of going to Todai-ji Temple is to see the big buddha! But, no, the Japanese are even better than Disney at planning a route so that one thing after another unfolds in front of you and the rest remains a mystery. So first you need to walk further along a path to get to another smaller gate.

And this is where the adventure begins. A group of 5 students, probably around middle-school age, came up to us in their yellow hats and, reading off a piece of paper in front of them, asked if they could interview us. "Sure!" we said. They were so cute! So they asked where we were from. "America", we said. And they all said, "OOOOOooooo!" And then they asked what were were proud of in our country. "Freedom" we said. I'm pretty sure they had no idea what that word translated to, but they all nodded. Then they asked us our favorite sport. "BASEBALL!!!" I said, given how much I love it and I know Japan has a huge baseball fan base as well. They boys all nodded and smiled at that one. And then they asked what surprised us about Japan. Mom and I looked at each other... we are both pretty well traveled and couldn't really think of being surprised by something. So we went for something like how tasty all of the food is. Which isn't really surprising to us, but sounded good. And then the kids asked if we could write down our answers on their paper, which we did. Upon writing down our answers, we were each handed a lovely little piece of origami. "Great", we thought! The kids were happy, mom asked to take a picture of them with me, and it was fun!

All smiles!
From Nara - October 7, 2011

They said thanks, we said thanks, we put the origami into our bags and we moved toward the smaller gate to go see Todaiji Temple.

OR DID WE???

We stepped about 10 steps and another group of kids in yellow hats came up, reading off of a paper and asked if they could interview us. "Uh-oh" I said to mom, "Perhaps we're supposed to keep the origami out so they know we've been caught?" But we're good sports and it only takes a couple of minutes, so we went through the process again. Only, we thought it would be best to say different answers where possible. It was a bit more challenging the second time, but we managed other answers for most of them, and we asked for another picture, this time with mom.

Still smiling!
From Nara - October 7, 2011

After the photo, we took our origami gifts, displayed them prominently in front of us to ward off other students, and were on our way!

OR WERE WE???

We took another few steps, and another group came running up. Same ages. Same yellow hats. I was beginning to fear the yellow hats. At first one group came up and started, but one of the kids spotted our origami, so they went away. "It works" mom and I thought. And another group came up and started, but backed off. Of course it wouldn't be that easy... Perhaps I should mention that, either because Nara is less popular, or because mom and I got an early start compared to most tourists, there were hardly any westerners around. There was a tall blond guy a few steps ahead of us, but beyond that we didn't see anyone else that was easily identified as foreign until we were getting ready to leave the temple.

Upon moving close enough to the second gate to see that we had to navigate the length of a big wall to get to the actual entrance to the temple, we were swarmed. Really, we were downright swarmed by kids in yellow hats! At least 4 groups of 4-5 kids each rushed toward us at the same time! Thankfully, one of their teachers was actually with them this time and noticed we had our origami already. But they were so wanting to practice their English and fill out their paper, we said, "Okay, once more, but for everybody at once." The teacher understood "one more" well enough, and so we went through the interview AGAIN. And we got ANOTHER origami.

I really wish I had captured a picture of the swarm of yellow hats at that moment!

By this time, we were ready to start running in order to get away from the yellow hats. Luckily we were at the point where we could go up the steps and peek through the slats in order to see the temple, thought it's sort of obscured and far away.

We walked to our left, avoiding eye contact with every yellow-hatted kid along the way, hoping that once inside the temple we would be safe from interviews.

And, for the most part, we were. More on that later. Once making our way through the entrance gate on the side, we came out in a covered walkway that took us toward the center back of the gate we had just peeked through the slats of. And we see it. And it's BIG. But it's all to scale of all of the other buildings we've seen, so I don't quite realize just how big until I realize how small the people are that I see entering the building at the bottom. WOW.

The view walking in the entrance:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

We paused to take photos of us, of course:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Once we got some pictures we wandered along the center path toward the building, admiring the land around the area within the walls. Getting up to the front of the entrance, I realized how high up the roof was and just how much wooden structure there was holding it up. I read that this is the biggest wooden structure in the world, and it's easy to see why that's so impressive!

The roof edge:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Me by the entry door of Todaiji-Temple:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

And then we stepped inside, to see the world's largest bronze Buddha. It was amazing to see such a huge figure. Very impressive.

Buddha:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Mom by the Buddha:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Self-portrait and Buddha:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

For scale, some people. And wait, there's those yellow hats interviewing the tall blond guy!
From Nara - October 7, 2011

One of the guardians in the back of the hall:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Blue hats, not the dreaded yellow hats:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Mom, providing more scale against the column and Buddha:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

And I'm sure you thought we were done with the yellow hats in the story, didn't you? HA! Because just when we rounded the last corner and were taking the column photo, we got accosted once again. They didn't care that we were already carrying three origami each, they were going to interview us! By this point, we started recycling answers. This time, I did grab a picture.

They're everywhere!
From Nara - October 7, 2011

In fact, we were finished up with the Buddha, so we spent the next few minute plotting our travel of the exit path so as to avoid kids in yellow hats. I really wish I was exaggerating. When we got through the exit of the walled-in area, we were darting and maneuvering to get out of the zone of tour groups. Phew! On the way out we actually saw a number more westerners so I hope they all found some other people to interview. I'm pretty sure we did our part, speaking to at least 20 of them, probably more than that. They really were quite sweet! It's just that there were so many of them! :)

And now, to finish off Part one of the Nara adventures...

Creepiest sight at the temple:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

Cutest sight at the temple:
From Nara - October 7, 2011

And I think you need more DEER!
From Nara - October 7, 2011

1 comment:

  1. It was such a fun day! I am so glad we made the effort to add Nara to our Japan travels.

    ReplyDelete