My new favourite place in Japan

My final two days in Japan were spent exploring temples and trying to bond with deer in Nara. As so many things have happened and its all been a bit of blur, this, my final entry in this series is more a collection of photos.


After calligraphy heaven I spent the rest of the day wandering around Nara Park, and being amazed at the sheer numbers of deer happily grazing around the multitude of tourists, most of them Japanese.


This is the five story pagoda at Kofukuji. Ji 時 means temple in Japanese. There were hordes of Junior High kids there at the same time, clearly on excursion.


Todaiji 東大時 is the world's largest wooden building and is suitably impressive. This is just the entrance gate.


The sweeping lawns leading up to the temple lend home to a plethora of cliches, difficult to harness on film.


The Buddha inside is 15 metres tall.




The humans are fine with the traffic rules but the deer are still confused about where exactly to cross.





The next day I went out to Horyuji, about ten minutes by train from Nara.

Founded by Prince Shotoku, who is attributed with having introduced Buddhism to Japan, Horyuji is one of Japan's oldest temples. Its main hall, five storied pagoda and central gate, all located in the temple's Saiin Garan (Western Precinct) and dating from the 7th century, are the world's oldest surviving wooden structures.




I spent the test of the day back at Nara Park, chilling out with the deer, reading a book, sleeping on a bench, killing time before heading out to the airport to fly home and be reunited with my mum!


If you want more photos, here you go, or check them out bigger here.