Nara

5/25/05

near kyoto is a city called nara that was japan’s first capital. it’s famous for the same thing as kyoto: lots of incredible temples and beautiful gardens. besides the temples and gardens though, nara is also famous for its deer. there is a huge area in town called nara-koen and there are tons of deer there that roam around and you can feed them little biscuits etc.

when we got to nara, for the first time since we’ve got to japan, finding a hotel was easy. the first place that we called had vacancies, and we were all set. it’s funny, when i told the guy on the phone that we would indeed like to book the room, his response was “you will take it? OHHH!! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU SO MUCH! THANK YOU SO SO MUCH!!!!” from then on, every single time we talked to the guy, he would thank us profusely over and over again for absolutely everything: checking in, signing forms, answering questions, etc etc. at one point he even said “thank you so much! thank you too too much!”. it was hillarious. and the funny thing is that a lot of people here are like that. they thank you over and over again for the smallest things. they act thankful almost to the point of grovelling in front of you. most of the people do it in a way that just seems really thankful, but some people do it to the point that it’s almost ridiculous.

provided by our hotel: hangers, slippers, flashlight, shoe horn, brush

after checking in, we took the bus to check out two temples: Toshodai-ji and Yakushi-ji. the first one wasn’t all that insanely impressive, but the second one was really cool. it had one large central temple flanked on　either side by skinny tall temples of different colors. as usual, the schoolkids were out in full force and both temples were swamped w/ kids in uniforms. oh, one thing that i’ve found to be really cool is the decoration that a lot of the houses here have on their roofs. the tiles are laid out in a really cool way, and they usually have cool designs all along the edges of the roof. sometimes they’ll have these faces where the roof comes to a point.

lantern at toshodai-ji

roof ornament on a house

roof ornament on a house

the japanese are very worried about dog poop. not sure what the poop is saying.

cool flowers near a house

schoolkids passing out in front of yakushi-ji

yakushi-ji

yakushi-ji

after the temples we had dinner at an okonomiyaki place. okonomiyaki is sometimes called a japanes crepe, but really it isnt so much like a crepe. it’s kind of more like a scramble or omlette or something. you choose which ingredients you want and they mix them together with this batter and cabbage and then fry it up in front of you at your table. sometimes they throw a bunch of noodles inside it too. we got a few beers with our okonomiyakis too. i dont know what it is about japan, but we’ve been getting beers w/ pretty much every meal here. it’s not cheap either, but for some reason it’s really appealing and we do it anyway. at a restaurant, you’ll usually pay like 4 or 5 bux for a beer, but at a bar they’ll cost 8 or 9 dollars!!

daniel waits for his okonomiyaki

5/26/05

we spent our second day in nara by touring the nara-koen area. as soon as we got there we saw the deer. they’re everywhere! there are tons of them. tons of little shops sell you little crackers that you can feed to them and the deer will come right up to you and eat out of your hands. you could even pet them and they didnt really care too much. actually, the deer are almost a little too tame, and as soon as they sense that you have food, a bunch of them will run at you and crowd around hoping to get some. there were lots of kids there who would get totally freaked out and start running away from the deer, and the deer would then chase them. it was a pretty crazy scene.

while we were there, a lot of kids kept coming up to us and asking to talk to us. they were studying english at junior high and were given an assignment to interact w/ foreign english-speaking tourists. they would come up to us, and very nervously in broken english, recite some specified lines (hello! what is your name? where are you from? etc) and then have us sign a paper for them. it was really funny cause most of these kids were all nervous and shy and kept giggling all the time. sometimes they would then ask if they could have a photo taken w/ us. it seemed like a really cool homework assignment to me, and then i started thinking about how in america it probably would never be allowed cause parents would freak out about their children being made to talk to strangers.

yum! biscuits!

although we’ve seen some japanese gardens that were on the grounds of some temples, we still hadnt been to a really hardcore japanese garden. so, while in nara we went to isui-en gardens. soo awesome. japanese gardens are just so peaceful and tranquil. walking around w/ everything silent except for the quiet crunching of your feet on the gravel… checking out the ponds w/ huge koi swimming in them… looking at all the perfectly manicured trees and plants. everything is always so perfectly harmonius and soothing. after walking around the various paths, we spent some time just sitting around on a bench and taking it all in.

one of the most popular souveniers that they sell at nara are these fake fuzzy antlers that you can wear. we saw tons of little kids walking around wearing them, and then as a joke, my brother bought a pair. so of course, we all tried them on and took dorky photos of ourselves wearing them. it was a bit embrasssing since i think the japanese people walking by thought we were a bit weird, but whetever. the most hilarious part though, was when caryn had this idea of taking a photo of me wearing the antlers and her pretending to feed me the deer biscuits. i guess there was this japanese couple walking by who saw this and laughed, cause caryn called them over, and then had the guy pretend to feed me this biscuit. it was absolutely hysterical!! especially cause japanese businessmen seem so serious, and here’s this guy wearing his formal attire and feeding crackers to a tourist weraing antlers. so funny!

dan tries the antlers

baby deer

caryn feeds deer w/ her mouth

after that we continued on our walking tour and checked out some more temples including Todai-ji, Nigatsu-do, and Kasuga-Taisha. the last one of these i especially liked as it had tons and tons of japanese lanterns hanging everywhere. the temple itself was really beautiful, but w/ the lanterns it was even better. also, i dont know if i’ve already mentioned this, but a lot of these temples have small purification fountains out front. it’s a small water basin, and you use these long handled spoons to rinse your hands. this purifies you before you enter the temple. i really like these little fountains since they usually have really cool statues over them, or are made out of really cool bamboo.

todai-ji

nigatsu-do

purification fountain

kasuga-taisha

kasuga-taisha

kasuga-taisha

kasuga-taisha

*v