Nara [奈良市] | JBinnacle – A Travel Logbook

On this day I was supposed to hike up a mountain – mount Takao to be precise. But you know what? When I woke up that morning I just did not feel up to it, so I decided to change my plans. In the end when you’re on the JR Pass you can get from Kyoto to Osaka for free. For a change, I actually got to Osaka instead of Shin-Osaka which was convenient. Then I grabbed the underground to get to Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan [海遊館], which is actually the largest aquarium in the world.

I had been there before, but the previous time I did not get to see the whale sharks as they were ‘quarantined’. How can anyone block a tank which is in the middle of the whole damn thing, I have no idea, but they did. This time I broke even and had a blast. Unfortunately the Aquarium was packed because this was a Saturday morning, and for some reason my back was hurting a lot. I had dropped my luggage off at a coin locker because I thought it would be better. However at some points I could not really walk straight. The weight of the camera bag was too much and I had to sit down. Found a nice place to watch the sharks from, though.

After the Aquarium I went to Kuchu Teien [空中庭園], observatory in the Umeda Sky Building [梅田スカイビル] to have a look at the skyline and to get the stamp for the Japan Towers rally. I got the greatest omg-gaijin face of the trip here (and truth be told, had I known that the stamp was actually held at the reception desk and not the actual observatory, I might have skipped this). In this case the building is an attraction itself. It consists on two towers joined by some passageways and a circular platform at the top, with see-through escalators.

Next the plan was going to Dotombori, stroll down there, and eat some takoyaki before heading off to Nara where I had my hotel for the night. When I got to the station and jumped on the Osaka Loop line, it turned out that I actually was in the train that continues on to Nara… and it was air conditioned and I had a seat…

I found it a sign and decided to just go with the flow and get to Nara [奈良] on that train. Upon arriving there I checked into the hotel and I decided to go to Nara koen [奈良公園], the main Nara park, and see if I could feed a sacred shika [鹿] deer or two. This was close to 5 pm by now so all the temples would be closing anyway. I did feed the deer some shika senbei [鹿煎餅] (deer crackers), and one of the does bit me. Not even the hand that was feeding her, she actually tried to snack on my tummy. Sheesh.

As I was coming back down I had a pretty sunset over Kōfuku-ji [興福寺].

Today was a delayed day, actually, as I apparently took over the plans I made last year when VAMPS had the secret live and I skipped back to Tokyo to attend to it. Then again, as I had changed plans from yesterday to today, everything came a little jumbled.

After a nice chat with the Tourism Office lady – in broken Japanese, as I did my best, the fist thing I set off to do was visit the Arashiyama bamboo grove in Arashiyama Chikurin no Shōkei [嵐山竹林の小径], which is a nice little town adjacent to Kyoto (yep, not a neighbourhood. A town all on its own. That’s Japanese urban planning for you). I had been wanting to visit the area for a while now, and finally made it there. After a nice detour – because taking the wrong turn in Japan always yields to something interesting (then again, people, placing sings of ‘bamboo grove this way’ right behind the map is not helpful, Japan) – and a couple of temples I ended up where I wanted to be, and boy was it impressive.

In the middle of the bamboo grove we find Nonomiya Jinja [野宮神社], a nice little shrine which was at the time overridden by Chinese tourists (that happens, apparently, when you visit a shrine dedicated to marriage).

After a couple of hours wandering the bamboo grove I head back to Kyoto station and once again took the Nara line, only this time I would not be stopping in Inari as I have done before, but took the express to Nara [奈良] itself, which was something else that had been on my list for a while.

Yet another nice Tourism office lady, and way too many Spanish tourists later, I was on my way towards Nara Kōen [奈良公園], Nara Park, where my first impression was one of the things that makes Nara famous… deer. Hundreds of ‘wild’ deer which chase after tourists to get shika senbei (deer crackers) and eat maps when said crackers are not available. Very cute, very… adamant XD

But not my main visiting goal, never mind the creepy American dude who wanted to take a picture of me with them. My goal was visiting the to visit Todai-ji [東大寺] temple, and Daibutsu [大仏] (Giant Buddha) it hosts. Todai-ji did not disappoint me at all. It is a very solemn, very special temple and I enjoyed it.

I wandered around the Nara complex for a while and visited Kofuku-ji [興福寺] on my way back. They have a very famous Ashura sculpture, and a thousand-arm Buddha statue, but no pictures allowed, so I can only show you the exterior.