Our Nara Adventure

13th July, 2007

I had planned to take Alicia to Nara today – somewhere I had never been before. I was a little nervous because this was the first time that I actually had to be a guide on my own – and if you know my sense of direction…..well you would be slightly worried. It was pouring with rain when we woke up but we didn’t let that stop us from our adventure. We just took out umbrellas and went on our jolly way.

Nara is about 2 hours away from Himeji and it is a fantastic place. I absolutely loved Nara. There are lots of things to see in Nara and so we tried to fit in as many things as we could in the day – and I tell you we were on the go the entire time (we only stopped to have lunch for 15 minutes). We headed to Nara Koen as this is where the main attractions are. Nara Koen is a big park where many deer roam around and where the biggest Buddha lies. It also has lots of temples and shrines to visit. Some of these are world heritage listed. The deer are quite tame and seem to like people. They come right up to you so that you can touch them if you want. There are deer crackers that you can feed them too. Alicia and I were very hesitant about the deer and so just went near enough to them to have a quick photo before moving on.

Todaiji Temple was our first stop. This was an amazing temple and just magnificent to look at. It was so big. In this temple is where the largest wooden Buddha in the world lives. It was so huge and amazing. It's 14.98 metres tall.




We came to a pole which had a hole in it. The hole was said to be as big as the Buddha’s nostril and if you could fit through it you were said to have good luck. Well of course I wanted to give it ago. It didn’t look all that big and I thought that I was going to get stuck but when I saw quite a few people fitting through, it made me feel better. I gave Alicia my camera and told her to take the pictures and to help me if I got stuck. Well I made it – I actually made it through 4 times. The first photo’s were blurry, so I did it again stopping at each stage so that Alicia could get some good photos, then I wanted it videoed so I did it again. The video never worked so I did it again to capture it on film. Well it worked that time and I was happy. We probably spent 40 minutes at the hole but it was very amusing. I was hot and sweaty by the fourth time. When I went home to video was nowhere to be found. How disappointing. Just as well I got good photos!! Here is each stage………









Our next mission was Kasuga Taisha Shrine. This was very difficult to find but with Alicia’s great map reading skills and my wonderful Japanese we found it. :-)


We then headed to Kofukuji Temple which consisted of a five storied pergoda. We even got lucky to see a little ceremony taking place at the temple. Many people dung a little instrument and shook a bell and I wanted to have a go too.



Sarusawa -ike Pond was the next thing we saw. Then we wondered a while and stumbled across a Japanese traditional house which we were allowed to enter. This was pretty cool. By this stage it was 5:30 and we were very wet and tired. We decided to head to the main street to have a look at some shops grab some tea and then head back to Himeji. We didn’t get home until 11pm. It was a very enjoyable day but a tiring one.