I wanna take purty pictures too...

June 4, 2008

Headed for Nara early and the trains run on time, which is really nice. Walked along the same route that we walked yesterday and get to Kofukuji Temple. It's surrounded by a 3 story and 5 story pagoda. There are a lot more deer out since its nice and warm. We take some pics and watch people feed them and then head off.

I need to head to the washroom, so we head into a tourist information building that we later find out is an earthquake museum as well. They have a seat that you can sit in an experience two level 6 earthquakes that occurred in Japan a while back with and without earthquake protection. Then the guide takes us over to see a couple of small model buildings with and without earthquake protection to see the dampening effect that it has. It's really cool technology. We decide to head off and I grab a pamphlet from the museum.

On the way to Todaiji Temple, I grab a green tea ice cream and its pretty tasty. We're followed by deer looking for food so I toss them the end of my cone. Just as we stop at Nandaimon Gate,
to take some photos, a deer comes up from behind me and snatches away my pamphlet. I'm totally caught off guard by this and end up having a small tugging match with the deer. The deer wins and runs off with a not so tasty snack. Stupid deer.

We get into Todaiji and there's just scores of people. Lots of school groups on field trips and we get enveloped in a sea of school children for a bit. The temple itself is the largest wooden building in all of Japan and it houses the largest Buddha statue in all of Japan. I don't feel very enlightened with all of the noisy tourists snapping away with their cameras around me though. There are 2 smaller Buddha statues on either side of the large Buddha, and behind them are wooden statues of guardian gods.

Southeast of Todaiji is Kasuga Grand Shrine (Shinto). It's a bit of a walk between the two sites so along the way we checked out some souvenir shops and stop for lunch at a shop with a restaurant in the back. The place is run by another wise old man who asks us in Mandarin if we speak Mandarin. I know just enough Mandarin so say that we don't understand so he reverts to Japanese and a bit of broken English. I get my first taste of cold soba and barley tea. Tasty.

The Shinto shrine ended up being much quieter since there isn't as much to see and its more of a trail that's populated by Shinto related buildings and gates.

On the way back to Kyoto, we take a rapid train (versus the local, which would stop at every stop along the way) and find out that the backs of the seats are reversible so you can just pull on it and have the seat back switch sides. There are all sorts of cool things on the trains in Japan like reversible seat backs, air conditioning vents, curtains that you can slide down to various predetermined slots and some have digital panels that tell you what stop is coming up if you can't hear the driver.

I take a shower and head back to Kiyomizu-dera to hopefully get some better photos than the ones we took when it was raining. The bus gets me there pretty quickly and I hurry up the hill that Kiyomizu-dera sits on and get in about half an hour before it closes. It's right around sunset and since its almost closing time, there's a nice lack of tourists so I can take lots of nice pictures without having to worry about random people getting in my shots as much. I take a few pics with the digital camera. There's beautiful lighting but the camera is a piece of junk and I can't really set anything in the manual mode. No shutter speed or aperture. I can over/under expose my photos and change the white balance, but that in no way helps to capture the atmosphere of this place. Lack of an SLR makes Dan sad.

Walking back to the hostel from Kiyomizu was really nice since it had really cooled down, but I find out when I get back that I got a couple of mosquito bites right along my sock line. Stupid mosquitoes. After dinner at a Japanese restaurant, we run into Ryan and Jen again and make plans for tomorrow. Ryan's going to be heading for Miho Museum and while that seems interesting, I'm going to head to the Traditional Crafts Museum and Kyoto International Manga Museum before everyone meets up at Nijo-jinya.