Nara

Monk in Nara

Morning prayers were at 6:00am this morning in Koyosan. As opposed to evening meditation, the main ceremony hall was packed with guests. While the monks were chanting the prayers, all the Japanese Buddhist guests were coming forward, giving offerings (coins) at the altar, bowing, and then heading back to their sitting places. Some were talking, which was a bit distracting, but the service was beautiful anyway. After the chanting and prayers, the head monk told a very long story to all the Japanese people (it sounded an awful lot like a sermon). After they left he called the three foreigners (us and the Australian girl from the night before) forward and explained a quick summary of what he told the Japanese people and told us a quick story about the Buddhist fundamentals that they follow in their sect. It struck us as almost exactly what we as Unitarian Universalists believe, just by embodied in a different idea.

After morning prayers and breakfast, we gathered up our belongings and headed to the bus stop to head back to take the cable car and train back to Osaka to head out to Nara. We forgot to mention that the cable car had super cheesy music playing in it on the ride both down and up. Like, the worst hold music you’ve heard. We got a little lost back in Osaka, due to some slightly inadequate signage, but we made it to Nara around lunch time. The tourist information booth was staffed by some very friendly English-speaking ladies who gave us a good map of the city and an explanation of how to get everywhere and the major sightseeing locations. They even knew exactly where our ryokan (Japanese-style hotel) was and which bus stop to get off on.

Our room in Nara

View from our room in Nara

We left our baggage at the ryokan, and headed off to find some food. After walking around without really knowing what to eat, we ended up at a little bakery/café that had some fairly tasty drinks.

Men making mochi nom nom

Our mochi

From there, we headed to the Nara park where all of the temples are. Nara is supposed to have been the site where a Buddha arrived riding a deer. Deer are therefore highly revered in the city and are basically free-roaming throughout the park (with no fences to keep them in any particular area). Most of them hang around the stands that sell deer biscuits around the park to prey on all of the tourists that show up to feed them. They’re so incredibly tame, you can’t help but want to feed and pet them. We found some doe that were hanging around a little forest area that was off the street and looked like they weren’t freeloaders, and decided to feed those. There was a little baby buck that hadn’t quite sprouted antlers among them. It was a great experience, and one that I recommend everyone has in their lives.

Deer hanging out near the cracker stand.

Meghan holding some deer crackers.

Meghan feeding some deer.

This little buck says "GIVE ME A CRACKER!!!"

Meghan petting a faun

*Quick note from Meghan: The baby buck was quite a talker. FYI a deer sounds quite like a squeaky toy.  You can’t help but want to comfort the thing.*

We headed to Todaiji Temple, where the giant Buddha statue is. When we got fairly close, it was quite evident that it is the biggest tourist destination in the area. Hundreds of Japanese school children ranging from late Elementary school to High school levels were in attendance. Along the walk up to the temple, we got stopped by no less than 4 groups of sixth graders who evidently all had the same activity book from their school that had them asking foreigners who spoke English to answer some questions to practice their English. It was really cute (though it got a little old after the first few), and they all gave us gifts for answering their questions in the form of origami or little art pieces they made in school. We got stopped by a few more on the way back out until we got on the bus to go back to the ryokan. I would guess that the fact that they all had this assignment means that the Buddha generally attracts plenty of foreigners to end up as fodder for the questions.

Some of the kids who asked us questions.

This group was required to get a picture with us as proof.

The giant Buddha is enshrined in this huge temple that was evidently rebuilt around the statue at some point, slightly smaller than it originally was. This fact was hard to imagine as large as it was. The Buddha itself was quite beautiful, and it had two slightly smaller Buddha sitting to either side of it. Additionally, there were some other large wooden statues that were quite cool looking. The walk out of the temple was full of chintzy souvenir stands that made it very clear that it is the single most tourist-trap place in Japan. It was a little off-putting, but the statue was impressive enough to make up for it.

Giant Buddha

Smaller Buddha just to the left

Giant Buddha next to small Buddha

On the bus ride back, a handful of school kids got on a few stops after us. They were pretty cute and a couple were looking at us so I said hello to them in Japanese, and they were very surprised that I knew any Japanese. I asked them how old they were (most were 7, the one 8 year old was trying to tell all the others how to say 7 and 8 in English), and after I could hear a couple of them talking about us, and I think they were thinking it was pretty funny that I was talking to them in Japanese.

We spent a few hours at the ryokan before going out for dinner. A lot of the restaurants around the are closed every Thursday, which made it hard to find one that was open. We settled for a Jazz bar that had Italian food. The carbonara was really good, but the pizza wasn’t so great. We’re spending the rest of the evening resting up to be ready to walk around Kyoto.

Link to Today's Pictures