Day 7 - Family Japan - "Nara - Todai-ji and Deer!"

Day 7 (December 20, 2018)

Realizing just how much we could realistically fit into a day by this time, we had cut our itinerary and had just two small things on the list for the day, they were both in Nara.  First, Todai-ji to see the giant Buddha statue and second, feed and play with the deer.  Giving up on breakfast out we made breakfast at the house and headed to Nara closer to 8AM to make room for roaming. The train ride from Kyoto to Nara was a solid hour, but a straight shot at least.

Arriving in the main station of Nara, not only was the "deer" theme painfully obvious, but we had the same dilemma of transportation. Bus (confusing), walking or taxi. Considering everything we had been through with each, it was a taxi once again.  This time it was at a little higher of a price, clocking in around 1,300 yen, but totally worth it to drive straight to the Nara park entrance.  We head out of the taxi and straight into the park where Todai-ji (and, of course) the deer were located.  As expected, Terra was immediately freaking out at all the "cute deer!", but I decide to be maybe a little mean to her and test her patience, so off to Todai-ji we go first.  If you have never been to Nara, the deer are EVERYWHERE.  Though most of them just walk by or stay sitting down side-eyeing you to make sure you don't have "the crackers".  I showed Terra the empty hand move as soon as we got out of the car, so every time one would look at her, she would do it.

It was pretty hilarious.

Walking to the Todai-ji entrance took about 45 minutes of easy strolling. We decided to self-tour the building (they offered tours, but I wasn't going to put Terra through that again), the entrance fee was cheap at 500 yen for the Great Buddha Hall alone (again, we opted to not visit the museum for Terra's sake). The view of the courtyard once through the massive Nandaimon Gate was serene. The building itself was entirely open to the elements, making it was a little chilly inside. The main Buddha statue was located in the back and stunningly huge, the hand was 8 feet tall alone.  Surrounding the area were various prayer candles, tithing boxes and goods for sale (which included a ton of deer related merchandise, of course).

There were also some other exhibits showing how large the complex used to be and how it was rebuilt around the statue several times after fires or other disasters, the current one being constructed in 1709 at only two thirds the size of the original.  After exiting the hall, they had small shops, gardens and shrines scattered about. We spent some time outside reading a few historic signs, making wishes on the statue and explaining to Terra what all that incense and praying was about. With it still being well before lunch, around 11AM, it was another leisurely stroll back towards, what we though was, the exit of the park. We enjoyed the scenery and even got to see some fall foliage, it was pretty late in the season so a very pleasant surprise. Enjoying the walk, we came across the Kasuganocho shrine and some other smaller complexes, I can once again highly recommend just setting time aside to get lost in the area.

After walking 45 minutes or so, we came across a small row of shops near the back of the park.  It was here that we decided to feed a small grouping of deer (there were maybe 10 in total within sight), we fed six or seven of them, with one being a little more aggressive and sticking his whole head into my coat pocket (where the crackers were for a few seconds), but overall they were simply entertaining and not dangerous at all.  It was cute and funny watching her try to feed the small one, only for it to get knocked out of the way by a larger one. We finish up here and decide to try and walk to a station and browse along the way. Turned out the station was a long ways off, we must have been walking in the wrong direction initially.  Getting stuck behind multiple gatherings of school children, and then tourists, we decided to give up and find a taxi about half-way to the station of target, this put us on the train at 12:30PM with just a snack in our stomachs. Getting back to Kyoto shortly after lunch time, we decide that this weekday afternoon would be a better time to try the tofu place I remembered from 2010 (the one we failed to eat at upon our Saturday arrival), after that today would be one of the best to get any shopping done.  We do successfully obtain the tofu lunch set!

Unfortunately, it did not hold up to the taste I had from 2010. Though the meal was presented nicely, it turned out to be mostly tasteless, small portions and super expensive compared to our other outings.  I would no longer recommend it.  We did get a pretty good view while waiting and some much needed rest of our legs during the meal at least.

Being one of our last full days in Kyoto and still pretty early, we decide on going up Kyoto tower (directly across from Kyoto station, in which we were dining). It was only 3PM, so we would have plenty of time to go up, get a view and some pictures and then scoot back over to the other side of Kyoto for some shopping. Once we got inside, it was more obvious why there weren't more people around. The view wasn’t very grand as the day had become cloudy and misty, but we had fun going up to the top and doing the tourist thing anyway. One of those “while in Kyoto you must do” sort of things rather than a highlight of our journey. We grabbed a few neat souvenirs from the shop (one being a Kyoto Tower/Boku no Hero Academia file folder) and moved on.

Going back to the Pokemon center first, as we were begged by Terra to pick up (what we now knew) the exclusive Pikachu hime doll plushies and browse around for a bit. We stop into Animate and a few other stores, but leave without buying much. There were also a lot of Christmas decorations to admire on display.  This included a NYC Macy's style window display, Terra stopped and watched the train going around for some time.  Very busy with a lot of sites to see, but we gave up early and hopped in a taxi to get back to the mall across from the house. Taking a little bit of time in the mall we get some delicious crepes at a shop we walked past several times and actually shopped together for dinner for a change, getting back by our self-imposed curfew of 7PM.  The next day would be our last in Kyoto and we had two huge things to mark off the list, both Fushimi Inari and Kiyomizu-dera.  Lucky for us, Fushimi Inari was a rare breed that it had no “hours”, so we planned to get a super early start.