Luckily, most of the stuff seemed to escape major destruction through Japan's volatile history. Since it was such a power house of Buddhism and strength, the Capital was changed with following leaders and thus Nara was relatively forgoten about.
Most people do Nara in one day as a daytrip from Osaka or Kyoto. I think it's absurd for the amount that is here and I forever condemn any guidebooks that suggest so.
My hostel was a 19th century traditional Japanese building. Formerly used by a very old family as a tea ceremony place. Such an amazing atmosphere and true to the era of paper walls and creaky floorboards a very cool place to stay. For any of you that don't know. The tea ceremony is a ritual with hundreds upon hundreds of steps all of which are to be perfectly executed. From the pouring of the tea, to sprinkling droplets of water onto the garden leaves to make them sparkle in candlelight. It's unfortunately a dying art.
It started snowing! So beautiful!
Nara has 90% of its stuff in a single big park on the side of the city. Beautiful gardens and hundreds of temples and shrines. The most famous being Todaiji.
Todaiji is the worlds-biggest wooden structure and home of the Great Buddha. One of the greatest and largest Buddha statues in Japan.
Stretching off into the roof. BIIIG building.
Biig mamma. Difficult to get perspective but comparing it to the size of the building it is housed in is a good indicator. Jaw dropping
This is carved out of wood. Massive guardian statues adjacent to the Great Buddha
Walking around Nara Park. full of lanterns, shrines, ancestoral stones and deer.
Millions of deer waltzing around everywhere. Think ALA cows in India, these deer cross the street when they want, go where they want and do what they want all day.
According to legend, some leader invited a god to his house to probably drink sake, and the god actually arrived riding a white deer. So from then on they respected & looked after deer and so now most of the ones in Nara are tame. I didn't buy the biscuits you can feed them but I pretended to have one with a piece of paper and a deer followed me curiously for way too long.
Took a 5K hike up a mountain above the park. All sacred forest & very beautiful
Great view. Hazy day unfortunately.
2nd tallest Pagoda in Japan dating from 1400's
One of the temples with thousands of lanterns. I did read what they stood for but I lost the piece of paper so you'll have to make do with the photo
More lanterns!
