Nara

Today Lance and I headed out to Nara. It`s a place known for its park, deer, and giant Buddha statue. We had a fabulous time there!

It was a bit unclear at first exactly which train to take to go to Nara. We hopped on one headed for Takara/Nara (I think?) thinking we could just take it the whole way out. Luckily, we could understand the announcements a little bit and got the idea that the train was actually splitting at one of the stations and then part of it was going to Takara (?) and the other part going to Nara. With the help of a few fellow passengers and a train conductor, we managed to switch to the correct part of the train and continue on to Nara.

Once we arrived we started walking down with the other crowd of tourists towards the large park with the many shrines and temples inside it. Once we got to the fringe of the park, we weren`t exactly sure where to go from there (the map wasn`t too clear on the relative distances). Luckily, we`ve found that when you are visiting a tourist spot in Japan and aren`t sure of your bearing, following any of the large groups of Japanese school children is a pretty safe bet. It`s very easy to spot them since they are almost always in uniform. If there are any outgoing kids in the group, you might have the added entertainment of exchanging a hello and sending them into a fit of giggles.

The deer here were a bit larger than at Miyajima and generally better behaved. I think that the people who run the deer cracker carts have probably had a hand in disciplining brazen and unruly deer. They didn`t really bother you unless you had purchased deer crackers with which to feed them. Lance and I decided to forgo this option and instead had a bit of a chuckle at the children who bought the deer crackers and proceeded to screech and panic and run away from the deer that they were trying to feed.

Once we arrived at the building that houses the giant Buddha statue it was a truly magnificent site. It is the largest wooden building in the world and is quite a bit smaller than the original structure was (destroyed by fire and rebuilt several times). Inside was quite crowded with tourists and it was a bit hard to catch any kind of Buddhist serenity.

After a bit more walking around in the park we stopped for lunch at the famous Mos Burger chain. The food was very good and it was a bit of an interesting twist on a `fast food` joint. The line-up at the counter is pretty similar, but then you go find a table and they bring your food to you. The food was very tasty though much smaller portions than north america.

After lunch we decided to wander around the town. We found all sorts of interesting and beautiful sites as we passed through. My favourites were the two cemetaries we walked through. I could really feel the spirits there as we walked through the tightly packed memorial stones with breezes rustling through the small bamboo groves.

After wandering to a point in the town where we once again knew roughly where we were, we realized we should probably head back to the train station as we were both pretty tired from all the walking at this point (and we had a fair bit more walking to get us back to the station). I think we both nearly fell asleep on the train back to Osaka.

From there we were hungry again and stopped at a place close to this internet cafe for dinner. It had really great food and lots of stuff we recognized. So, now we`re all caught up again and probably ready for some dessert. If the real selection of parfaits in this town taste half as good as their plastic display models make them look, I`ll be pretty happy.