Day 4 Pictures
Today started with a train trip to Nara which is south of Kyoto.
The first stop was Kofukuji temple flanked by two pagodas. One of the pagodas was five stories and the other was three but was octagonal rather than the usual style.
We then walked up past the Nara National Museum to the magnificent Todaiji temple. Prior to reaching the temple you pass through a huge gate that has two evil looking wooden statues inside on either side. These two gentlemen are supposed to ward off any nasties that may come to the temple.
This temple houses the worlds largest bronze Buddha. You will see from the pictures the two gold fish tails on the roof of the temple. These are water signs and used to protect the temple against fire.
The Buddha and the building it was housed in were enormous and quite humbling to visit.
After this temple we walked around the Nara area and visited a Zen shrine called Kasuga Taisha. At this shrine we saw the large sake containers lined up as offerings to the gods to drink. We also got up close and personal with the many deer that inhabit the area.
The area is quite touristy with many sellers of tourist tack abounding who also sold biscuits for the deer to eat. These biscuits contain chemicals that aid in population control of the deer. It was quite fun watching one of our party start to chow down on one of these biscuits that had been given to him by his wife before realising that they were not for human consumption.
His nick name from then on during the trip became Bambi.
We walked back down to central Nara city to get some lunch.
After another noodle lunch at Nara we caught the fast train back to Kyoto for some retail therapy before meeting again at out hotel for an evening out.
At the hotel prior to leaving I ventured into the vending machine room to grab a bottle of water. In Japan there are vending machines everywhere selling just about everything. You can get hot and cold drinks (out of the same machine), cigarettes, snack foods etc. However I was quite shocked to see a vending machine in the hotel that sold hamburgers and fish and chips!
We all jumped into cabs for the journey back to the Gion area for a very touristy version of the tea ceremony and a performance of the cherry blossom dance by the local Maiko. The tea was served by Maiko from the tea houses in the Gion. This bitter green tea is definitely an acquired taste was served with some sweets with bean paste in the centre.
The Miyako Odori is a famous dance performed by the Maiko from the area every sakura season. The performance lasted just over an hour and amongst our tour group there were more than a few nodding heads towards the end. It was more fun to watch the musicians that were seated along the flanks of the stage. It was however a very colourful affair and I was glad I went along.
After the performance we were free to do our own thing for dinner. We headed out to the Pontocho area to wander for a while before ending up at a local restaurant to have one last expensive Kyoto style dinner. We resisted the urge to gorge on more cake this evening.
We jumped a cab again back to the hotel for a relatively early night. It was an early start the next day and a long day of travelling awaited us.
Day 4 Pictures