Today I woke up at 7:30, which is an hour later than usual. (It was fantastic!). The schedule for today was Nara and deer. Nara is really well known for the “Deer Park” they have along with Todai-ji. I was super pump cause I was going to see a bunch of bambis. I went on this Nara adventure with Chess and we headed out to the station at around 9am. We both bought a train pass that would get us to Nara and back and a few other trains. It was the cutest card ever.
10 minutes into the train ride…I freaking lost my train pass! It was in my pocket and when we were switching trains it was gone. I was so angry. Especially since I paid 1680 yen for it, I literally lost $15 right off the bat. It was awful.
We arrived arrived at Nara around 11ish. The train rides from Kyoto Station to Nara station was about an hour or so. Thankfully, the station people let me pass through when I told them that I lost my train ticket.
The temple and park were in the same street and the right off the bat we saw deer. It was so mental! Chess and I were casually walking up the street to go to Todai-ji when a deer came into vision out no freaking no where! The whole time I thought the deer were going to be in a park, almost like a zoo type of thing we had to pay to get into, but it was not like that. They were just everywhere. EVERYWHERE. The deer causually walk everywhere, letting people pet them and feed them cookies.
They were all so cute, but they were all smelly (so much deer poop everywhere). I had to breath out of my mouth for a long time. Chess and I kept petting deer as we headed to Todai-ji. We spent a good hour distracted by all the bambis around us.
Todai-ji is a temple that was built in the Nara period (710 – 794 AD). The temple was officially positioned as one of many state-established provincial temples. However, since the chief object of worship of the temple is Vairocana Buddha, and the temple was built to reflect this Buddha. The statue of Vairocana Buddha is made from cast bronze, which was then plated with gold. The statue was consecrated in 752, but ut was damaged and repaired several times in the following centuries. The Great Buddha Hall was burned in the fires of war in 1180 and 1567, and the current building is actually the third generation structure (and it was built during the Edo period). Even though it is 33% smaller than the first original structure Todai-ji is still considered the largest wooden structure in the world.
Once we finished being boggled by the size Todai-ji, we saw the shrine stamp collection notebook in the area where they sell the shrine charms. Chess and I bought ourselves some~ (We now have to return to Kinkaku-jin to get our stamps)
We returned to Kyoto and set
fourth to buy our train tickets for Osaka. There was a specific place we had to go in order to get cheap tourist tickets. We saved around 100-500yen and we could use all the trains we wanted for a specific line as many times we want. Once the ticket was secured in our personal belongings we set out to search Mr. Young Men, a restaurant Chess wanted to eat in Teramachi Mall (which is in Sanjo-dori). We got slightly lost for a while but Chess found a “landmark” and we were able to the restaurant. There I ate okonomiya and it was delicious!
fourth to buy our train tickets for Osaka. There was a specific place we had to go in order to get cheap tourist tickets. We saved around 100-500yen and we could use all the trains we wanted for a specific line as many times we want. Once the ticket was secured in our personal belongings we set out to search Mr. Young Men, a restaurant Chess wanted to eat in Teramachi Mall (which is in Sanjo-dori). We got slightly lost for a while but Chess found a “landmark” and we were able to the restaurant. There I ate okonomiya and it was delicious!
Once our tummys were nice and full we set fourth to Kyoto Tower. Kyoto tower was pretty cool, but it was not nearly as impressive and cool as Tokyo Tower and Tokyo Sky Tree. But it was still pretty cool seeing Kyoto as a little miniature set.
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