Nara

About two weeks ago, Lara, Lana, Caitlin and I went to Nara for the weekend. Nara, like Kyoto, is a very historical city, and many of the old buildings still remain. We arrived early on Saturday morning and checked into our hotel. We decided to splurge a bit and stayed at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese style inn. This one was very small, on a little back street in the center or town. It had a beautiful Japanese garden in the middle, traditional rooms with futon, Japanese communal showers--the works. It was an interesting experience. It was fun and I'd do it again, but I do kind of prefer the privacy of a Western style hotel.

On Saturday we walked around a bit in the center of town and did a little shopping as we walked towards Nara Koen, a big park and the location of many of the sights. One of the things Nara is famous for is the deer that roam freely in this park. They are considered to be messengers from the gods, and are given the status of National Treasures. There are about 1200 of them wandering around (it's a big park), and you can buy deer crackers to feed them. We had a lot of fun feeding the deer (and running from them when they chased us looking for food). 

We went to Todai-ji, supposedly the biggest wooden building in the world, and home of the Daibutsu, a giant statue of Buddha. After that we wandered around the park, enjoying the weather and seeing a few other sights. We had a relaxed dinner at a little jazz bar we found (its name was Gentry. We thought that was pretty classy, until we realized they had meant it to be Gently. Whoops. Typical Engrish mistake).

Sunday we were planning on going to this one garden in the park, then traveling a bit outside of the city to visit another famous temple, but at that point I was starting to feel sick (the feeling which subsequently turned into pneumonia and a week home sick). We made it to the garden, which was pretty, but I was feeling really sick, so I decided to come back early. Caitlin's knee was hurting so she decided to leave too, and then Lana and Lara decided they might as well leave as well. So we came back early. But Nara is not that big, so I felt we got a nice little taste of it in the day and a half we were there. 

Pictures from Nara