Tokyo Tofu Japan

This Sunday, I returned to Nara once again. I went there the first time last year in March, when everything was cold and dead, and the sacred deer that roam the city were very, very hungry. So on this visit I was hoping for a few things, 1) nice green grass and green trees to be in my pictures, instead of brown and dead like the last time, 2) nice friendly deer, and 3) warm weather! Luckily all three of those things happened. We (Cassidy and I, we’re pretty much become travel partners for this semester (who will I find next semester?? I don’t know )) started out by biking to Hikone station at 8am, and got there in time to catch the limited express train to Kyoto (the limited express takes maybe 45 minutes to get to Kyoto versus the local which takes over an hour). Being a Sunday morning, there were plenty of seats open, so we didn’t have to stand up for the whole trip, which seems to happen about 50% of the time. We got to Kyoto station and found the JR Nara line, and were lucky to have timed it well enough to be able to jump on yet another limited express train. Arriving at JR Nara station at around 10:15am, we adjusted out ticket fares, asked for an English language map, and started wandering around the city. We briefly thought about taking a bus to Deer Park, but it was only a few kilometers from the station, so we started walking. We walked through your typical touristy shopping and eating districts and eventually got to the entrance to Deer Park.

Some background information on Nara and Deer Park: Nara (then Heijo-kyo) was the capital of Japan from 710 to 784 AD, during what it called the Nara period of Japan. (The capital was moved in 784 to Nagaoka, but only 10 years later, it was moved to Kyoto and the Heian period began). Some of Japan’s first literary works, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki (creation myths and national histories of Japan) were complied in 712 and 720 repsectivley. During the Nara period, Buddhism was permanently established as a religion in Japan. Buddhism had existed in Japan since the sixth century, but never had a large following until the Nara period, when it was embraced by Emperor Shomu. During Shomu’s reign, Todai-ji (great eastern) temple was built, and within it was placed the Dainichi Bosatsu (Great Sun Buddha), a 15 meter tall, solid bronze statue originally created in 751. Today, the current temple structure is the largest wooden structure in the world, despite being a recreation of the original building (which burned down twice and suffered damage in an earthquake), finished in 1709, and being 30% smaller. The original complex also contained two 100m tall pagodas, which may have been the tallest buildings in the world at that time, besides the pyramids.

Todai-ji temple is situated in Deer Park in Nara, which is a large area that also contains Kasuga Taisha shrine, one of the top three most important Shinto shrines in Japan. It was founded by the Fujiwara’s during the Nara period as their guardian Shinto shrine, and the history of the shrine indicates that one of the shrine’s four deities, Takemikazuchi-no-Mikoto, was invited from Kashima (Ibaraki prefecture) and arrived on the back of a white deer in 786. Accordingly, the shrine and Kofuku-ji, a Buddhist monastery (which still remains to this day), declared the deer (shika) to be sacred. Since that time, the deer have been protected by the city of Nara (in fact, the punishment for killing a deer used to be death), and about 1200 of them still roam free to this day.

The first thing that Cassidy and I did when we got into Deer Park was to buy the special deer snacks (made from, what else, rice) for 150yen (as opposed to 500yen the last time I was here). The deer could be seem waiting around each vendor that was selling the deer cakes, just waiting for another victim to go up and mob. Or at least, that’s what I expected them to do. This time, however, they seemed to be quite nice. In fact, the first deer that we encountered was sitting under a tree and allowed us to stand behind him/her and take some pictures. We continued walking around the park, past Kofuku-ji, a 5-story pagoda, Nara National Museum, which had a very long line (and was 1000yen to go in, so we passed), and eventually got to an open area where we could see Todai-ji temple in the background. Cassidy decided that she wanted to find out what it was like to be mobbed by the deer, so we found a large group of them and she gave them all the food that she had left. I preferred feeding them one on one, since the last time I was in Nara I was mobbed and slobbered on by a group of very aggressive deer. They were much nicer this time around however.

After feeding and petting more and more deer, we started to walk towards Todai-ji. It took us a little while since we were traversing through a park and trying to avoid the deer poop, but eventually we got to the main gate for Todai-ji. It cost of 500yen to get in, and despite the fact that it was a Sunday, there were a ton of people there, including many many school groups. The weather was really nice, so I got a ton of good pictures. The building was, once again, a sight to see. Walking in, I decided to light some incense that was in the doorway, but not knowing any other religious rituals, I left it at that. The daibutsu (big Buddha) was, well, BIG. There were also several other very large Buddhist figures inside the temple, along with some models of what the original complex looked like in the 700’s, complete with its twin 100m pagodas. Leaving the main temple building, we walked through the outer walls, and we found yet another one of those coin machines that you can engrave your name on. Unfortunately, most of the other souvenirs were pretty cheesy in nature, so I left with an ema (wooden prayer planks) and a coin.

After leaving Todai-ji temple, we wandered aimlessly around Deer Park and came across a Shinto shrine whose name I do now know. After leaving there, we headed over to Kasuga Taisha shrine, which is famous for the thousands of stone lanterns that are on its grounds. I don’t know if that Sunday was a holiday, but there were many families with small children dressed up in their kimonos coming to the shrine. My conversation partner later told me that there are certain ages that are specially celebrated once a child reaches it. I’m not sure what age exactly….but the kids were really really cute. When we got to the shrine, there was even more school grounds wandering around the premises. Also, unlike last year, they were no longer working on replacing the roof. I was told the last time I was here that, because of the technique used (layering thin strips of cypress bark on top of each other), it takes about 25 year to replaces the roof on the entire complex of the shrine, and that they replace it ever 30 years. Yes, years. There are families that perform this special art, and pass their techniques down to the next generation (although, I can’t really think of a more tedious thing to have to do for 25 years straight). After buying another ema, and taking more pictures of deer and lanterns, we left and headed out of Deer Park. At this point, we sat down and tried to figure out what to do next. We had been through half a dozen shrines and temples at this point, and wanted to do something different. We decided that since Osaka was closer to us than going back to Kyoto, we’d head over there and wander around some more before going back to JCMU. So around 1pm, we headed towards, this time, Nara Kintetsu station (closer to us than JR Nara station), and stopped for a bite to eat at a restaurant before leaving Nara. I had some tempura udon, which was pretty good, and we grabbed dessert from a local Mister Doughnut (not very Japanese, no, but they were tasty). Then, we went into Kintetsu Nara station, and unlike the JR stations, this one didn’t have a subway map in English. Not finding the kanji for Osaka, we had to ask someone how much our ticket was. Luckily it wasn’t too difficult, and soon we were on an express train bound for Osaka.

Petting and feeding the deer: