Over the past few weeks, I have visited many Japanese cities. Ranking them, I would say that my favorite has been Tokyo with Kyoto, Nara, and Hiroshima closely behind. (We also went to Kanazawa, but it doesn’t make the cut.) Why I put the big cities at the top is because you can marvel for a long time how clean everything is, how few cars there are, and the metro system. Using it, you can get anywhere in the city in twenty-five minutes or less! In addition, the people throughout Japan have been very nice. If you ask them for directions, such as how to get to the Kyoto train station, they will gladly answer. In fact, on our first day here in Japan, in the Tokyo metro station, a man walked up to us as we puzzled through how to buy tickets. He generously offered us advice and not only that, but he purchased some tickets for us. On another occasion, we left a backpack in a cab, and the sushi restaurant we cabbed to helped us to track it down and even gave the cab driver a sushi snack for his troubles. (The cab driver himself was so kind that he drove all the way back to the restaurant with the backpack and wouldn’t even accept a tip for the inconvenience!)
One thing I particularly liked was the Owl cafe. I thought it was cool because you could ask the person there if you could hold the owl, he would say yes, and the next thing you know you’re holding a barn owl. Pretty amazing, right?
Of the many cities we have been to, although Nara is not necessarily my favorite, it is worth discussing because it’s really cool and we really enjoyed our day trip there from Kyoto. So, here goes.
Located about 45 minutes outside of Kyoto, where we lived for nine days. Nara has a giant temple almost as big as the Taj Mahal. I can relate because I’ve been to both places.
Nara’s history goes back a long way. All the way back to 710 AD, in fact. It was flourishing until 784 because it was capital, but the capital got moved.
Nara is unique because of the temple I talked about earlier, and because of the amazing deer park in the heart of the city. The temple is amazing because there are three giant Buddha statues one being much bigger and the other two being symmetrical and much smaller. The taller one is about one hundred feet tall, and the smaller ones are about seventy-five feet tall. The larger one weighs 500 tons!
Now, to talk about the deer park. There are over one thousand in this two square mile park, and many vendors that you can buy food from for a dollar per four crackers. Unless the deer is a few weeks old or less, you can walk up, and start petting it. Isn’t that amazing? It was really awesome. You can even touch the males’ antlers or take a deer selfie! I couldn’t believe it when I first heard about it, but if you go there, you’ll see that its true.
Now I will tell you the whole temple experience. First, we got to pet a deer on the way in. Then, when we were through the front gate, we took some pictures of the amazingly decorative architecture of the building. Then, we got to go inside and see the three big Buddhas. After that, we went behind the big Buddhas and got in line to crawl through a hole that runs through one of the poles supporting the roof, which is as big as the biggest Buddha’s nostril. Supposedly, if you can fit through it, you get enlightenment, which is pretty much living to an old age.
What I most liked in Nara was definitely the deer park because almost no one gets to pet deer in their lifetime and to do so I thought was really amazing.
Fanatical Sabbatical 