What a lovely day we had today! After yesterday’s disruptions we finally made our trip to Nara. It’s the first permanent capital of Japan and indeed a must-see place. The city itself is not that big and all the main attractions are in Nara-Koen areas - a beautiful park with deer which you can pet and feed with “deer biscuits”.
Usually they are tourists friendly but somehow we had a rough time making friends with them. Agata was “attacked” and our map was partly eaten (fortunately we had biscuits so we lured it with them, otherwise it would had eaten the map, and we might end up as deer poisoners).
But after all we’ve became friends:
The park is filled with historical sites that has been registered on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
First we went to Kōfuku-ji temple and its Pagoda. The temple was established in Nara at the same time as the capital in 710. The five story pagoda has 50m and it is Japan’s second tallest (also it has a laser canon on the roof, probably part of Japanese defense system :-)).
Then we saw one of the most beautiful sights in Japan, the second largest wooden building - Tōdai-ji temple with the Great Buddha inside. The statue is very impressive - it’s 16.2m tall and is made from 437 tons of bronze and 130 kilograms of gold.
Our final destination was Kasuga-taisha shrine - 2 paths to that shrine are lined with approximately 2000 stone lanterns and its interior is decorated with around 1000 hanging bronze ones.
After feeding the deers we also felt that we need to be fed so we headed back to the town centre. We went to one of Nara’s many restaurant and had chankonabe - a type of dish, that sumo wrestlers have. It’s a hot pot that contains a chicken or dashi broth and a few more ingredients.
Once we finished the lunch we headed back to the park to have some time to relax, read and feed deers again.
One last thing worth mentioning, that surprised us, was the feeling that place is not packed that much. We are sure that there were thousands of tourists, but somehow it didn’t feel overcrowded.