Kyoto take 2: Nara and the evil deer
Well no, the deer wasn't actually evil, it was me being stupid...but I'll get to that. On Sunday (day 2) Leah and I split up to do our own thing. I headed off to Nara, a city a bit south of Kyoto. It was supposed to take only 40 minutes by train...but I wasn't paying close enough attention and I got on a Local instead of an Express and the trip took well over an hour -_-;; Still, it was a gorgeous day when I arrived and I only had to follow the river of tourists to get to Nara Koen (koen = park), where all the interesting stuff is. Nara used to be the capital of Japan a loooong time ago and so has many important ancient temples. It's actually the #2 cultural tourist destination in the Kansai area after Kyoto...though honestly I'm not sure why. Nara's nice and all, but there isn't actually much to see beyond the deer and the giant buddha. The little tourist shops lining the road to the park attest to this. Hmm, I think the people in Nara really like deer. And now that I look at the photo more closely...is that Buddha on the sign in the back picking his nose?! Only in Japan, I swear. Actually, funnily enough the nose thing makes sense...you'll see why shortly.
Anyway, I wandered around the center of the park first, marveling at the herds of sacred, tame deer wandering freely all over the place. You can buy biscuits to feed them with, which I of course did. Here's where I got a little careless...after feeding and petting one particularly large deer, I turned away to get my camera out. I was dumb enough to still have a small piece of biscuit in my hand. The deer got annoyed at my taking his food away and actually bit me on my arm to get my attention. It wasn't a hard bite by any means, didn't even bruise, but it did hurt and gave me a bad start. I hastily gave the deer the rest of the biscuit and beat a quick retreat. The way they move around so freely, it's easy to forget that they're in essence still wild animals, with an animal's single-minded determination for food. Silly me -_-;;
Moving on, I quickly explored a large temple complex with the second-tallest pagoda in Japan after Toji in Kyoto. Nearby is a small Shinto shrine with a simply gorgeous Sakura (cherry) tree. There were dozens of Japanese photographers there capturing the flowers (they last only two weeks after they bloom) so I had to be a little clever to get shots free of people. I'm posting a few here, because I was really impressed with this tree and I thought you guys might be too: 1, 2, 3.
After that I made my way to Nara's most famous and significant site, Todai-ji, home of a gigantic bronze Buddha. Maybe it's the tourism, but the signs and tourist pamphlets for this temple love to emphasis how big it is. The monstrous gate leading to the temple complex is (they say) the largest of its kind in Japan...or was it the world? I forget, actually. The terrifyingly huge wooden guardian statues set in the sides of the gate certainly made me stop to admire them. They both were handcarved in the 13th century. Coolness.
The powers that be at Todai-ji also claim that the building housing the Buddha is the largest wooden building in the world, which I completely believed until I visited a temple in Kyoto the next day...which also claims to have the world's largest wooden building. Hmmm, okay. Apparently one's taller and the other's wider, but honestly one has to be bigger than the other in volume, right? Well whatever, in any case it's big enough and I honestly can't put into words the scale of the Buddha itself. It's a good 50 feet tall and really impressive and gosh, if you're not Buddhist the sheer enormity of this statue--and the power it implies--might just be enough to convince you to convert. You can walk around the whole thing, and in the back corner there's this interesting pillar with a hole in it. The hole is the same size as the Buddha's nostrils (remember my nose comment earlier?) and the story goes if you can crawl through it you'll receive enlightenment. Well the Japanese are nothing if not adventurous. There was a long line of people, mostly parents with kids, waiting to try. I decided that I wasn't going to fit through that hole and that I would look really stupid trying, so I just watched in amusement. Near the pillar is this big, terrifying statue (sorry for the slight blurriness, the lighting was pretty bad) that reminded me strongly of Professor Umbridge from the 5th Harry Potter novel, holding Hogwarts in her hand. Anyone else get that from this statue? Creepy.
That was basically it for Nara. I headed back to Saga in time to meet Leah for our tour with Peter Macintosh, who is a long-time resident of Kyoto (and of Gion in particular) and who makes a living giving tours of Gion, photographing geisha and maiko, and consulting on documentaries and films about Kyoto. He's a really interesting guy, and we enjoyed our informative tour on the world of geisha and maiko quite a bit. Here's a shot of us in front of one of the more prominent teahouses. If you've read Memoirs of a Geisha, this place, according to our guide, is where the main character Sayuri entertained the Chairman. The sunset as we neared the end of our walk was amazing, especially with the Sakura trees in bloom over the canal. Here's another view. We found out during the tour that two real life maiko (apprentice geisha) would be coming out for a public photo shoot at the canal that evening. After dinner we headed back and waited around for what seemed like forever...then all of a sudden they were there and we both excitedly fought the crowd to get pictures: 1, 2. Not the best photos in the world, I'll admit, but it was really really hard to get good lighting and angles without being jostled or shoved by the crowd. Still, the maiko were so beautiful in their makeup and kimono, like porcelain dolls come to life. Of course they're not dolls, they're people...but I guess in some respects, as least where photos are concerned, I'm just as shallow as the next tourist -_-;; Afterwards we walked back along the Kumo-gawa, the large, shallow river that runs through the center of the city. I liked seeing all the restaurants lit at night, it gave a very mysterious feeling to the whole place. We also spotted a glowing Kiyomizu temple in the distance, shining a huge spotlight to the west. The west, according to a friendly English-speaking Japanese person who spotted us admiring the sight and stopped to explain, is where Heaven is believed to be in Buddhist belief. Cool. A fun end to a very busy day :)
Next: We dress up as maiko!! ^______^
Anyway, I wandered around the center of the park first, marveling at the herds of sacred, tame deer wandering freely all over the place. You can buy biscuits to feed them with, which I of course did. Here's where I got a little careless...after feeding and petting one particularly large deer, I turned away to get my camera out. I was dumb enough to still have a small piece of biscuit in my hand. The deer got annoyed at my taking his food away and actually bit me on my arm to get my attention. It wasn't a hard bite by any means, didn't even bruise, but it did hurt and gave me a bad start. I hastily gave the deer the rest of the biscuit and beat a quick retreat. The way they move around so freely, it's easy to forget that they're in essence still wild animals, with an animal's single-minded determination for food. Silly me -_-;;
Moving on, I quickly explored a large temple complex with the second-tallest pagoda in Japan after Toji in Kyoto. Nearby is a small Shinto shrine with a simply gorgeous Sakura (cherry) tree. There were dozens of Japanese photographers there capturing the flowers (they last only two weeks after they bloom) so I had to be a little clever to get shots free of people. I'm posting a few here, because I was really impressed with this tree and I thought you guys might be too: 1, 2, 3.
After that I made my way to Nara's most famous and significant site, Todai-ji, home of a gigantic bronze Buddha. Maybe it's the tourism, but the signs and tourist pamphlets for this temple love to emphasis how big it is. The monstrous gate leading to the temple complex is (they say) the largest of its kind in Japan...or was it the world? I forget, actually. The terrifyingly huge wooden guardian statues set in the sides of the gate certainly made me stop to admire them. They both were handcarved in the 13th century. Coolness.
The powers that be at Todai-ji also claim that the building housing the Buddha is the largest wooden building in the world, which I completely believed until I visited a temple in Kyoto the next day...which also claims to have the world's largest wooden building. Hmmm, okay. Apparently one's taller and the other's wider, but honestly one has to be bigger than the other in volume, right? Well whatever, in any case it's big enough and I honestly can't put into words the scale of the Buddha itself. It's a good 50 feet tall and really impressive and gosh, if you're not Buddhist the sheer enormity of this statue--and the power it implies--might just be enough to convince you to convert. You can walk around the whole thing, and in the back corner there's this interesting pillar with a hole in it. The hole is the same size as the Buddha's nostrils (remember my nose comment earlier?) and the story goes if you can crawl through it you'll receive enlightenment. Well the Japanese are nothing if not adventurous. There was a long line of people, mostly parents with kids, waiting to try. I decided that I wasn't going to fit through that hole and that I would look really stupid trying, so I just watched in amusement. Near the pillar is this big, terrifying statue (sorry for the slight blurriness, the lighting was pretty bad) that reminded me strongly of Professor Umbridge from the 5th Harry Potter novel, holding Hogwarts in her hand. Anyone else get that from this statue? Creepy.
That was basically it for Nara. I headed back to Saga in time to meet Leah for our tour with Peter Macintosh, who is a long-time resident of Kyoto (and of Gion in particular) and who makes a living giving tours of Gion, photographing geisha and maiko, and consulting on documentaries and films about Kyoto. He's a really interesting guy, and we enjoyed our informative tour on the world of geisha and maiko quite a bit. Here's a shot of us in front of one of the more prominent teahouses. If you've read Memoirs of a Geisha, this place, according to our guide, is where the main character Sayuri entertained the Chairman. The sunset as we neared the end of our walk was amazing, especially with the Sakura trees in bloom over the canal. Here's another view. We found out during the tour that two real life maiko (apprentice geisha) would be coming out for a public photo shoot at the canal that evening. After dinner we headed back and waited around for what seemed like forever...then all of a sudden they were there and we both excitedly fought the crowd to get pictures: 1, 2. Not the best photos in the world, I'll admit, but it was really really hard to get good lighting and angles without being jostled or shoved by the crowd. Still, the maiko were so beautiful in their makeup and kimono, like porcelain dolls come to life. Of course they're not dolls, they're people...but I guess in some respects, as least where photos are concerned, I'm just as shallow as the next tourist -_-;; Afterwards we walked back along the Kumo-gawa, the large, shallow river that runs through the center of the city. I liked seeing all the restaurants lit at night, it gave a very mysterious feeling to the whole place. We also spotted a glowing Kiyomizu temple in the distance, shining a huge spotlight to the west. The west, according to a friendly English-speaking Japanese person who spotted us admiring the sight and stopped to explain, is where Heaven is believed to be in Buddhist belief. Cool. A fun end to a very busy day :)
Next: We dress up as maiko!! ^______^