Japan -Day 9

Our 9th day in Japan dawned and it was time for us to leave the awesomeness of Kyoto and head to our next city, Nara. We boarded the Shinkansen and headed for the green carriage. To our dismay it was full! All the seats had "reserved" written on them and we had forgotten to book our tickets. I saw the guard approach and I showed him our green pass tickets and asked if we could sit down in one of the empty green car seats. This was the first time I was met with some hostility from the Japanese. He looked very angry, shook his head and wiggled his cheeks to make a bllllaalalal type noise while he frantically ripped through his notepad he was holding. Eventually he found the "English" speaking section and slowly read out "Seats full. No sit". We were delegated to the blue carriage.. aka cattle class. Ok actually it wasn't like cattle class at all as even the Japanese normal class is like our super duper first class over in England. We had plenty of legroom, big comfy seats and air con. We couldn't complain. Plus the train journey was only an hour or so. Dan and I spent some time in silence writing our notes for the diary I am writing now. Before long, Kyoto was behind us and we had reached Nara JR station.
My first impressions of Nara was that it was again very different from Kyoto and Tokyo. All the housing seemed to be wooden with metal slate roofing. Telephone cables danced between the houses. The station was tiny and isolated. No one was around and it seemed like a ghost town. I stupidly had not packed a map to tell us where our hostel was but I had a vague idea of where it was from looking online previously. We head out into the streets of Nara with our suitcases and backpacks. Before long we encountered a local resident who upon spotting our backpacks.. assumed we were tourists and pointed us in the direction of the very hostel we were staying at! The "Guesthouse Naramachi". I guessed they were used to seeing travelers visit there and it must have been a popular one (or the only one?). We arrived outside a small square wooden house that had a sign hung up that read "Guesthouse Naramachi". Outside was a small bike rack of about 4 to 5 bikes. It was owned and run by an elder Japanese couple who lived there and let out rooms for travelers. The old man met us at the front door and greeted us. He must have been in his 70's. He was wearing all white and was smoking a pipe. He guessed who we were and told us a room currently was not ready but we could stash our luggage in the hallway if we wanted to. We agreed and asked where Nara Park was. He gave us directions and he asked if we wanted to hire cycles to get there. Since our last cycle was so fun we thought this would be a good idea. Also it was only 700 yen for 24 hours.. bargain!

We cycled through the quiet streets of Nara and followed the signs into the park. As we arrived we parked up our bikes by a gravel path lined with tourist shops. Now Nara is famous for the amount of deer that roam the area and the park itself. The legend has it that the deer were considered sacred due to a visit from Takemikazuchi-no-Mikoto, one of the four gods of Kasuga Shrine. He was said to have been invited from Kashima, Ibaraki and appeared on Mt. Mikasa-Yama riding a white deer. From that point, the deer were considered divine and sacred by both Kasuga Shrine and Kōfuku-ji. The point is, we really underestimated just how many deer there would be. There were freakin hundreds of them! Along the path we were on stood vendors selling "deer food". These were basically a pack of crackers for 150 yen. I decided it would be a nice idea to feed the deer. I walked up to one of the vendors who was a sweet old lady that smiled at me and asked if i would like to buy some crackers from her. However, as soon as I handed my 150 yen over.. her attitude changed.. she immediately turned me around and pushed me away, saying "Go! Go!".. I quickly realised why she had done this and my grave mistake . About 10 deer immediately swamped and ambushed me, biting furiously at my clothes, hands and bashing my legs to get at these crackers. As more deer realised I had crackers, the more came along. I quickly threw my crackers as fast as i could just to get rid of them. Bish thought this was hilarious and decided to film the attack rather than save me. The deer backed away after the crackers were gone and I was safe again. Lesson learned.. don't feed the deer.

We decided to follow the crowds down the gravel path through the

park towards a temple called the Todaiji Temple. To be fair you couldn't miss it. It was MASSIVE. The biggest we had seen. The roof had two golden horns on it which I thought was cool. We paid our entrance fee and took some photos of this gigantic structure. During our walk up to the temple a group of monks at the end of the pathway were playing music using huge bongos and drums. They played in perfect sync and the sound boomed all around us. It was deafening! We watched to end and then carried onto into the main part of the temple. At this point a group of Japanese school girls asked me to take a photo of them for us. They knew some English (a little) and tried to practice on me. I responded in Japanese which was fun! They were impressed and took a photo of Bish and I for us. After this we went inside the temple. Inside we understood why the temple was so big. Inside stood a gigantic Bhudda statue. Apparently they had built the temple around it. The photos don't do it justice as to how big it was but it was incredibly impressive. The temple also housed many statues of Gods and warriors. After a while we decided to leave and explore the rest of the park. We picked up our bikes and cycled around for a while, trying to swerve in and out of incoming deer of course. The park had many gardens, ponds, fields etc all arranged pretty perfectly! We found a free Japanese garden next to one you had to pay for. We went into the free one and walked around for a bit. Small pathways weaved through flower arrangements of all colours, small ponds and even what the Japanese call "Rock Gardens". Which are literally arranged rocks. We left here and left the park to explore Nara's town.

The town had a gallery of connected walkways that were lined with

shops. It reminded me of the food markets in Kyoto. Here we found a cool cafe that only played Elvis tunes and served cream soda shakes. We stopped here for a bit and after a quick sugar hit, we were ready for some more entertainment... this led us to the Pachinko parlours.. again. I was hooked. After losing more money we decided to grab some food. By this point we were getting a little tired of Japanese food and needed a taste of home. I'd read about a local burger place called Sakura Burger. It was a winner. Dan and I both ordered bacon cheese burgers and laughed at the engrish misspelling on most of the menu. "Thich bacon" was a personal favorite of mine. The burgers however... they were heaven. After this we decided to call it a night and cycled back through the empty streets of Nara back to our guesthouse.

We parked up our bikes outside the house and the old man who owned the place greeted us and showed us around the house. A narrow hallway divided the lounge to the right and straight ahead we could see a room at the end which was the kitchen. The lounge contained a television and wooden table in the middle. A steep, narrow set of wooden stairs was at one end of the lounge which led upstairs. The entire house was decorated with maps, globes and old ornaments which gave it a nice homely feel. In the doorway hung a traditional farmers hat used to keep the sun and flies out of farmers faces. I asked if I

could put it on and he gladly obliged. Our room was upstairs so we lugged our...Ok..my heavy cases awkwardly up the creaky stairs and onto the landing floor and into our room. Our room was much like the one in Hakone. Tatami flooring and two futons lay in the middle. The old man explained that this room was the "guest of honour" room as it contained a mirror covered by silk clothes with a floral pattern on it to be used by women. He also explained that the house itself used to be a school and proved it to us by showing us the ink stains on the walls where children would flick their pens to write. He left us here to get settled and to sleep.