One Day in Nara

In my previous post I've talked about how horrible it was for me to be lost outside my own room for a long period of time, so yes, it disrupted my sleep cycle and my body automatically snoozed the alarm clock and I woke up really, really late and have been doubting if I should really go to Nara.

Then the other side of me was all "F**k this, just do it" and I ran all the way to the train station after making sure that I grabbed the things that I needed, headed to Namba and switched to Kintetsu.

Also boarded the express train and arrived Nara in less than an hour and bought Calpis! Calpis is sold in my home country, but Calpis in Malaysia tastes a lot thicker compared to the Japanese version. I personally prefer the Japanese version, though. The Malaysian version feels like you'd get tired of it after gulping down the entire bottle (or maybe it's just me). 

As many have known, Nara is very, very famous for having many deers going around, from parks to tourist areas and even to their streets. The closer you are towards the Nara park, you would see more deers! 

I walked my way from Kintetsu's Nara station to Kofukuji (It's also spelt as Kohfukuji, apparently) at first, and I've already been seeing deers on my way there. 

Hello, you cutie.

When I was on my way to Kofukuji, I realized that they have a giant place that is in reconstruction, as well as having a booth for fundraising towards the reconstruction. However, in the following photo are the places that you could enter. There's also a museum too. If you enter the eastern golden hall only, you'll pay 300 yen. If you enter the museum only, you'll pay 600 yen. However, if you purchase tickets for both place at once, you only pay 800 yen instead of 900 yen!

The eastern golden hall with the pagoda of kofukuji

Since I wasn't able to take photos of the indoors, I'll explain about what exists within the buildings itself! In the museum, there are artefacts that are dated back to the 14th century. Most explanations are in Japanese language, though there are some that are in English. There are also beautiful wooden sculptures too. I assumed that the most important sculpture is the one that is on their posters, which is the sculpture of the four-faced buddha sculpture. As for the eastern golden hall, you can see many different statues of buddha and 12 types of guardians. When I was in the hall, there weren't many people, so I took some time to sit down and look at the statues closely for the details. It was quiet and peaceful, so it's rather relaxing.

Later on, I walked out from the Eastern Golden Hall and walked towards Nanendo, which is about only 3 minutes of walk. I also took some time to look at the red leaves on my way there from another route and the view was beautiful.

Nanendo

In Nanendo, I also offered my prayers and spent 200 yen for omikuji. Here, they also offer stamping on notebooks for a small amount of yen. I've also heard about things such as using the 5 yen coin or 50 yen to pray for better luck, especially in terms of relationship (for friendship, business, or love..) from meeting new people, so I made a prayer with a 5-yen coin too! Hopefully it'll bring me some luck when I start my career. c:

I forgot where this was but I think I took it on my way to Nara National Museum...

Though I actually had a couple more places to visit during my day in Nara, but since I headed out really late I just decided to walk past while petting each deer that came to me. They are all nice and cute, but their furs aren't as soft as I imagined ;w; 

Oh! Speaking of the deers, you can see many merchants around anywhere that you can sight a deer that sells this cookie called "Shikasenbei". "Shika" means deer, and "senbei" literally means fried biscuit. You can get a stack of the cookies for 150 yen and feed the deers! Usually, the deers that had enough of food would be around grass areas and taking a rest, and those who are not feeling full enough would start wandering around tourists and hoping that the tourists would feed them something. 

The deers that I've encountered are all gentle and adorable, and they would also bow to me when they wished that I give them food too! Though I also witnessed from afar an incident where there's this tourist from China tried feeding a deer and right after the deer took the shikasenbei, it immediately ran away while his second attempt of feeding almost resulted him getting kicked, so yes, not all deers are cute and some of them can get really aggressive. 

Almost reaching Ukimidou

So I continued walking through the path along the Nara National Museum and wanting to visit Kasuga Taisha, I saw a signboard that writes Ukimidou (浮見堂) so I headed there instead of Kasuga Taisha to see what kind of views I could get, and I found myself some stairs and went my way down to see a lake with an observatory. I was lucky to also witness a photoshoot of a couple for their marriage! 

Photoshoot ongoing

Then I walked towards the wrong direction thanks to my hopeless GPS but I finally arrived Kasuga Taisha! The path to enter Kasuga Taisha is very, very long. Along the way into Kasuga Taisha, I saw many banners celebrating their temple-moving (遷宮 /Senguu). Senguu in the past happens when the emperors or shoguns build a temple and on every 60 years, the temple will be burnt down and reconstructed. However, right now, the reconstruction of the temple is seen as a waste of resources and it destroys the existing building that is seen as cultural heritage, so right now, after every 60 years, they will be carrying the statue body of the god from the temple's main hall towards outdoors, then move it back into the temple's main hall. It's a great ceremony!

Celebrating Kasuga Taisha's 60th Senguu

Along my way, I also see many groups of children practicing for another performance too! Most of them are practicing how to walk while carrying very lengthy poles (with adult supervision, no worries) and I think they are really impressive! I also think that people around here work really hard on cultural heritage and take pride of it! I don't think there is a very encouraging environment for cultural heritage in Malaysia that is publicly made like how I've been seeing in Japan, but Malaysia is working towards preserving cultures too! I really hope that one day, instead of saying that I'm a Malaysian Chinese, I'll just say that I'm a Malaysian.

To enter Kasuga Taisha, you will also be finding yourself climbing up to slopes and seeing many many stone lanterns lining along the way. Inside of Kasuga Taisha, you will find a lot of beautiful bronze lanterns, like there are really a LOT of them! You can lurk around the outer area for free, but if you wished to enter, make sure to enter before 4:30 pm after paying 500 yen of entrance fee. From December to February, Kasuga Taisha is closed on Mondays to keep that in mind too!

Path towards Kasuga Taisha

If you have some time to spare, you can also drop by the Kasuga Taisha Shinen Manyo Botanical Garden, but from what I've read online, most of them are dedicated to wisteria flowers that blooms during spring. There are about 250 types of plants so if you'd like to drop by, I don't think it would be a bad experience.

Kasuga Taisha

You make a payment here to visit the inner areas

Some of the pretty lanterns

Before I leave Kasuga Taisha, I also managed to see two Miko that are dressed up with an accessory on their hair, I'm not entirely sure if it's an outfit for a performance since it seems like there are performances coming up soon enough _(:3J

Oh they also have a place where you could see wisteria but it's not the season so you can only see dried roots :'D

Since I was short of time, I didn't visit the botanical garden. I took some time resting near the deer-like hand-purifying fountain and there's this cute deer that wouldn't stop bowing to me for food but I ran out of shikasenbei so I kept petting it instead and kept saying that I'm sorry because I ran out of food and I didn't even have lunch for myself because I stuphed and never buy myself lunch ;w;

You cutie ;w;

Anyways, after petting with the cute deer, I decided to run my way to Todaiji because it's almost 4pm and it takes about 15 minutes of walk to enter Todaiji.

Never forget to take a pause and look up to the sky

I used to sprint a lot during my school days, and every time when we had this annual marathon event in school, I'd like to look into the skies while running. I usually sprint in the very front so I didn't really fear about running into people, but to be honest, looking into the sky during a morning or evening marathon eases me a lot and I don't feel as tired. Though in the end I didn't actually win any marathons because I can only sprint for the first parts, but sprinting wears my legs out very quickly so I never bothered to continue running and walk towards the end point instead, as long as I get my mission cleared I'm done for the day lol 

And apparently that's how I happened to arrive Todaiji 20 minutes before closing time. On my way from Kasuga Taisha to Todaiji, there are also a row of souvenir shops (that are ridiculously expensive for some of the items) and also many deers. The closer I am to Todaiji, the more deers I see. That's because Todaiji is near the Nara park! :D

There's also a museum for Todaiji, but since I ran out of time, I only visited Todaiji itself. 

Can you see a samurai's face from Todaiji?

Todaiji acts as a landmark of Nara, and there were reconstruction works going on so I was only able to enter the main hall, called Daibutsuden. Daibutsuden = Big Buddha Hall. There lies the big buddha that is about 15m of height and his open hand alone is already the height of an average person!

Giant Bronze Buddha Statue

By the Buddha's sides, there are two Bodhisattvas statues. In Buddhism, Buddha are people that have achieved the state of enlightenment and is free from reincarnation, but bodhisattva are those who achieved enlightenment but decides to return to the normal life of people to aid those who are on their path towards achieving the enlightenment. I'm not good in explaining about these despite being born in a buddhist family, I'm sorry that I'm not very religious T_T

As you walk through the path, you will see models of the evolution of the building of the Todaiji, and also seeing some of the artefacts such as the types of roof tiles being used as well as some explanation on the type of material and wood, and then you can see more statues.

There's also a wooden pillar that has a hole near its base. It's said that the hole of the pillar has the same size as the giant buddha's nostril! If you could actually squeeze through the opening, you will be granted enlightenment in your next life. However, I am not petite enough to go through the nostril, so I gave up trying and made my exit.

When you step out of the main hall, on your left you could see another statue that it's said that if you rub the area of the statue, then rub the same part of the area on your body, the illness on that part will be cured. Because I had a fracture on my left leg during March and it hurts from time to time, I touched the statues on his legs and touched my ankle. Not sure if it works, but I just did it regardless.

I hopped on a bus that charges me around 210 yen (or was it 240 or 260? I can't really remember) to get to the Kintetsu station. The bus stop stops somewhere around Konishi Sakura Dori, so I thought of going through it since it's near the train station, so I bought my lunch + dinner at about 5:40pm, had a quick bite, and went to Animate Nara.

All Out!

I didn't spend in Animate Nara, to be frank. Somehow, I'm not sure if my memories served me wrongly, but I actually thought Animate Nara has a different pricing for their goods. The branch is small, but well-decorated. Animate Nara also won awards as one of the best-decorated Animate branches! On the day of my visit, they have two Tsukiuta standees for Yoru and You, but I'm not entirely sure if I could take a photo because the staff were there and I was shy to make a conversation on that day itself. Moreover, the standees were also close to the UtaPri corner that has stated "no photography" so... I didn't. Since it's a small branch, I didn't actually stay for too long. I lurked around the drugstores, bought nothing, and went back to Namba. 

On the other hand, another friend of mine that has visited Japan went to Kobe and asked me if I wanted to tag along for the illumination festival. I felt so tired when I was already in Kasuga Taisha so I ditched the plan to Kobe and lurked around Namba for the street illuminations and some okonomiyaki instead. 

Choo chooooo

I was recommended by the friend to try the okonomiyaki in Yukari, and this round, I ordered the mixed okonomiyaki for 1200 yen + tax. Initially, I thought I might not be able to finish it but I did. I also went YOLO and ate it with mustard and I'm now addicted to adding mustard towards any okonomiyaki I eat.

Mix Okonomiyaki in Yukari Sennichimae

When you are eating in Yukari, you might want to be mentally prepared that you might be sitting at a space where people would smoke right beside you and you couldn't actually do much about it. Also, if you needed mustard or tabasco sauce, you needed to request it from the staff that are working there. Yukari also offers plain water and would refill for you if your cup is around half empty too. If not mistaken, they have a menu in English. Initially they asked me in Japanese on whether I would like to have an English menu, I responded in Japanese and hence... I happened to get the Japanese menu lol.

MUSTAAAAAAAAAARD

I strayed around Namba, but this time, I lurked around Marui mall and Takashimaya, then headed to Haginochaya station to buy food from Tamade and headed home for a long soak and prepare for the following day.

My following two days are designed to abuse the Amazing Osaka Pass! I might need to take some time to write about it but I'll try my best. :D

Until next time!