{"id":12220,"date":"2010-12-26T18:38:54","date_gmt":"2010-12-26T10:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=12220"},"modified":"2010-12-28T21:07:13","modified_gmt":"2010-12-28T13:07:13","slug":"day-5-nara-deer-park-todai-ji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2010\/12\/26\/day-5-nara-deer-park-todai-ji\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 5: Nara – Deer Park & Todai-ji"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nara is the one-time capital of Japan 1,300 years ago, and is a must-see and visit site for Buddhists. In the initial planning for this trip, I\u2019d scheduled a two day one night stay in this city, but upon finding out about the things to see and do in this city, reduced it to a day trip out of Kyoto. While the city holds a large number of National Heritage sites, many of them are religious buildings that neither Ling and I feel terrifically comfortable visiting.<\/p>\n

There were other sites that interested us though; the much-talked about cast of 1,000 tame deer (shika) that roam the wooded park and temple areas freely, and also Isuien Garden. A visit to Nara was thus in order, which we scheduled for Day 5 \u2013 Sunday \u2013 26 December.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s accessible by a relatively short 40 minute train ride from Kyoto Station and costs 690\u5186. The train goes to JR Nara Station, and walking eastwards along Sanjodori Street for about 20 minutes will bring one to entrances into Nara Park and the numerous shrines, temples and gardens. Only thing was the weather in Nara was c..o\u2026l\u2026d! By the time we got there at 9:50 AM, the temperature was about 3\u00b0C and there was a light mist about. Towards noon too, it started drizzling then followed by light snow fall.<\/p>\n

By the time we left the city at 2:45 PM, we checked out five places altogether in the city: Deer Park, Isuien Garden, Neiraku Museum, Yoshikien Garden and Todai-ji temple. I enjoyed the visitations to the two gardens a lot more than the rest; and those two places will be blogged in the next post.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3767-nara\"
Arriving at Nara Station. The station warden here actually volunteered to take a group picture of this troupe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_4036-nara\"
JR Nara Station. Very modern, very new.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3777-nara\"
But food first! We ducked into Nakau's for an early lunch. Coupon operated!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3779-nara\"
Ling had the Gyutojidon (450\u5186) and myself the Katsudon (550\u5186), supplemented with a Tonjiru (miso++, 180\u5186) soup side.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_4034-nara\"
The front fa\u00e7ade of Nakau's. For its prices, the food was especially tasty.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3782-nara\"
The start of Sanjodori Street.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3787-nara\"
Ling is freezing!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3789-nara\"
The Five-Story Pagoda. Right nearby it is a shorter building, aptly called "Three-Story Pagoda". <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3793-nara\"
Deer sniffling about Ling thinking she's got food.:)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Ling has deer phobia; she asked if there's deer can transmit diseases.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3817-nara\"
Disclaimrs all under one roof. In short, if the deer hurts you, it's your fault.:)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_4013-nara\"
The Great Buddha Hall at Todai-ji. This hall has been rebuilt several times, with this current structure was completed in 1709. Yep, it was snowing. We didn't go in as Ling didn't feel comfortable donating admissions fees.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nara is the one-time capital of Japan 1,300 years ago, and is a must-see and visit site for Buddhists. In the initial planning for this trip, I\u2019d scheduled a two day one night stay in this city, but upon finding<\/p>\n

Read More Day 5: Nara – Deer Park & Todai-ji<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17],"tags":[463,493],"class_list":["post-12220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dining","category-traveling","tag-japan-2010","tag-nara","wpcat-9-id","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}