Japan 2008 (5) - Nara (奈良)

Day 5
We were going to spend the day in Kyoto, but a sudden change of plan happened in the morning, so we ended up going to Nara instead. Both JR trains and the private Kintetsu trains go to Nara. We took the Kintetsu trains because I remembered someone at japan-guide.com had said, Kintetsu has much more trains to Nara than JR does. It was 7:00 am. The girl at Kintetsu ticket office told me that:
- There's a limited express train to Nara at 7:15 am. It will reach Nara in 35 minutes. It's reserved seat only. And it cost 1,110 Yen. Or:
- There's an express train to Nara at 7:16 am. It will reach Nara in 45 minutes. It's non-reserved seat. It cost 610 Yen.

We took the slow one since we were not in any hurry to get there. The girl kindly wrote down the name of the station that we needed to transfer (Yamato Saidaiji) on a small piece of paper, and counted the stops  to get there for us (stop 9). The Kintetsu train we took was not setup for foreigners. There was no electronic display at each carriage, showing what station was next. And the announcement was in Japanese only. After several stops, we forgot the count. We had to rely on looking at the platform name to find out if we should get off the train or not. Before our stop finally came, the guy sat next to me who never spoke a word until now told us in English: "next stop is Yamato Saidaiji". He was watching out for us. From Yamato Saidaiji, two more stops on a local train got us to Nara.

1. Hundreds of deer roam the grounds freely at Nara Park. They may seem tame, but as soon as they see tourists buying the deer biscuits, they can get really aggressive. Some of the deer would bow in begging for the biscuits.


2. Todaiji, said to be the world's largest wooden building, houses Japan's largest Buddha statue.


3. One of the supporting posts in the Great Buddha Hall has a hole that has been bored through the base. Legend has it that those who pass through it will be blessed with enlightenment in their next life. Guess I am all set. :)


4. Can you see my head?


5. Coming through ...


6. All done. The trick is going through the hole on your side, because the hole is not wide enough to fit adult body.


7. Ginkgo trees in Nara Park.


8. Big bell.


9. Tea house.


10. Stone lanterns near Kasuga Shrine, Nara.


11. Stone lanterns near Kasuga Shrine, Nara.


12. Street vendors making Japanese dessert. It's some kind of bean paste. They charged 3 bean paste balls for 390 Yen. It's pretty tasty, not very sweet at all.


13.


For lunch, we tried a conveyor belt sushi place right next to the train station. We assumed that they charged 120 Yen per plate after seeing a sign outside that had 120 Yen on it. It turned out this place was different than all the other conveyor belt sushi places we had ate. They color coded their plates. Only the cheapest plate cost 120 Yen (+ 5% tax) per plate. More expensive plates cost 180, 240, 320 or more per plate (+ 5% tax). We felt like being tricked at first. But after eating a couple of plates, I had to admit that they did give bigger portions of fish. So it wasn't too bad.

After lunch, we took the Kintetsu train to go back to Kyoto. There were only a handful of people in the carriage we sat, most of them either sleeping or staring at their cell phone screens. A guy wearing the train company's uniform came to our carriage. He first bowed to the carriage, then walked toward the other end, saying something quietly to everyone who wasn't sleeping when passing by. When he reached the other end of the carriage, he turned around, bowed to the carriage again, before turning around to open the door to the next carriage and doing the whole thing again. Nobody was watching him except Dave and me. Yet he followed his procedure anyway. What a discipline!

(To be continued)