The day dawned beautifully sunny. After an excellent sleep we got ourselves organised and set off at 9:30am for an expedition to Nara, east of Kyoto. It was pretty easy to jump on a bus back to the railway station, then onto the train for Nara. We arrived around 11am and promptly sat down for a coffee and nibble. We thought it was best to pace ourselves .....
And indeed it was. It took us until 4:30pm and 15km of walking to get around most of the vast complex. It is set in over 8ha and was the capital of Japan in the 700s, before the capital was moved to Nagaoka then Kyoto, before ending up in Edo-Tokyo. It still has an ancient feel to it, embodied in the many temples, halls, pagodas, administrative and other buildings. A number of them have national heritage status and the whole site and at least one Buddhist temple has World Heritage status. The buildings are scattered in a park, and some are very large. Wandering around the entire grounds are hundreds of very tame deer.
Even though it was a weekday, there were plenty of tourists most of whom were Japanese. We had a wonderful time wandering from one location to the next, and absorbed as much as we could of the old-world feel of the place. Located in the Kiyomizudera temple was a Japanese cedar thought to be around 1000 years old. There were plenty of extremely old and tortuous-looking wisteria vines hanging over pergolas and the like. Many of the buildings had, at one time or another, succumbed to fire, and some had been rebuilt up to five times during the last 1300 years. Seeing some of these incredibly old and cleverly constructed wooden buildings, and some of the precious items discovered to have been buried when their foundations were laid, does really make you stop and think. It was a very enjoyable day out.
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| A model of part of the complex |
Arriving back at our apartment at 6pm, we put our aching feet up for half an hour then hopped immediately across the alley to a little eatery which had very good reviews. It was a shame to be the only customers but supposedly it is packed on Thurs-Sat. Having just had odds and bobs to snack on during the day I sat down to a large bowl of chicken and scrambled egg udon noodles while John chose udon noodles with tempura prawn, chicken, fish paste, egg and mushroom. They were both delicious, and all for the grand sum of $24. |
| The little eatery opposite our hotel |
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| The hand-written menu as seen by Google Translate - it's amazing how good Translate is |
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| Our two dishes |
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| An old metal fridge inside the restaurant, confirmed by the owner to be 103 years old. |
