So, today we left Kyoto for a short day trip to Nara. The hotel runs a shuttle bus to the station so we were on the first one bright and early to catch the 0809 train from Kyoto station.
After an hour on the stopper, we arrived at Nara. Cheryl had a photo with Sento-kun, the Nara mascot, as soon as we arrived at the station. As a Budda with the antlers of a deer it certainly gave a nod in the direction of what was to come.
The main sites in Nara are contained within Nara-Koen, a large park area containing a number of temples and shrines. The park is also home to a large number of deer that are very tame with tourists mainly because they are used to being fed by them! We saw a number of examples of children with deer crackers being chased and one where a deer decided to eat a lady's paper bag as it thought there was food inside.
The main draw card, however, was Todai-ji. A massive temple housing the Great Buddha. Housed within the largest wooden building in the world (even at 2/3 of its original size) it's one of the largest bronze figures in the world. It's just over 16m high. As you can see from the picture, much taller than Cheryl...!!
There were a few other impressive statues in the hall, most notably the guardians which looked pretty fearsome.
Nara is a major day trip for school children from around Japan and it was full of them. To keep them occupied the young ones appeared to have been set tasks to practice their English by picking out foreign looking tourists and asking them simple questions. Obviously Cheryl and I stick out like sore thumbs so were a prime target being asked at every turn if we would 'answer a question'. Even after 20 times though it was still quite fun.
We spent a little more time wandering through the park and the town before stopping for a little lunch and then heading back to Kyoto to see the Golden Temple.
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