We’re on the bus ride to Kyoto with many of the Japanese
students as I type this, I figured I squeeze this in our 2.5 hour road trip
while people are resting ( I should be getting rest myself with my 5hours of
sleep!) and some still up mingling. I can hear them saying kawaii and cute as
they share photos haha. So back to where
I left off at day 3 from my last post.. Day 3 we woke up early once more. It’s on a Sunday so no pharmacy classes for
us that day. We took a couple train
stations to Nara where the deers roam free in the city. It was a quick train
ride and before we knew it, we were out of the station and had our first
encounter with the native residents and their furry tail and horns. It was very
kawaii, all the girls of class including myself surrounded it take pictures and
selfies nonstop. Our sensei pushed us along saying there will be many more deer
along the path. Sensei Nakagawa and Dr.
Katz was right, the streets are filled with them and they aren’t afraid of
human interaction either. There are actually vendors at the corner of the
streets selling crackers to feed the deer.
A few of the students bought some and to my surprise, the deer are all
over it like they were addicted to it. These crackers were the size of a small
hand too. I was given a cracker to feed
one and they literally take the whole thing in 2 bites! I was surprised the
deer were so close to the road with no fear from the cars or us. I can’t tell
If they’re more hungry to snacks or for attention. We soon traveled through a
small street with stalls and vendors selling all sorts of food. We could see
the entrance of the temple at the end of the street so this must be where all
the action is at. We shopped around on
this street for about an hour, food like squid and takoyaki, souvenirs, ice scream (for some reason this
is a huge hit among the girls in our group ). The souvenir shop was cute, lots
of mascots of Nara deer. I had a taste of the takoyaki squid balls that Dr.
Katz bought, legit Japanese food at its finest. There were stalls selling fresh
fruits with single large cucumbers with water sprinkling on it. I had a taste of sticky rice mochi, ice-cream
with unique flavors, and more, it was almost enough of an adventure for me at
this street alone. The group finally met up at the end and we headed down the
temple, past the wandering hungry deer’s that tried to eat some of the girls cloths!
So onto the temple. We entered the entrance of the temple grounds and went
through a paved path with lots of classical housings, trees, small lake, and high
walls. The high walls hid the actual
temple from sight. Dr Katz was kind enough to get us all tickets to Todaji
temple. As we went into the main grounds
past the high walls. The sight of the
temple and surrounding scenery stopped everyone in their tracks. The whole group was mesmerized and quickly
took the opportunity to take many photos of the huge temple. I asked a friend to take a photo of me with
her DSLR camera, turns out I am dying from sweating so much from the funny
photo of me. We entered the temple and
was greeted with a free tour guide who explained the historical the temple. Here is where we learned what the golden
ornaments atop of the temple were, fish tails. The fish tails are placed a top
of the temple to represent the idea that the temple is submerged in water like
a fish, protection from fire and keeping the temple from burning. He also
mentioned there was a small hole in a pillar at the back of the temple that
they have no idea what the purpose was, rumors state that wisdom and happiness
will be acquired if you can crawl through it.
We head inside the temple and the first thing we see is the largest
Buddha I have ever seen. Candles, hanging
fortunes and many monuments with panels in both Japanese and English describing
details of the history and importance of each item can be found inside. We
walked around the large Buddha statue and came across the mentioned hole in the
pillar. The hole was much smaller than I imagined, I didn’t think I would fit
through it. I saw the smaller girls in
our group go through with some difficulty. I decided to go through it, it was a
tight squeeze but I went through without too much pain, surprised everyone
around including nearby tourists. I can’t
say the same for another friend who got bruised pretty badly squeezing through.
We spent some time enjoying our visit in the temple and decided to split into two
different groups for Ramen. I was in Nakagawa Sensei’s group and she was kind
enough to help pay for a portion of our whole bill even though we insisted that
we should pay for her. The group felt bad for being treated so well. After
finishing ramen and shopping around the Nara shopping area, we met up and
decided what do to for the remainder of the day. A group went to Osaka to shop
and another group went to Osaka to visit the aquarium, I following the latter.
When we got to the aquarium, it was a surprisingly long line that winded
through the doors and to the side of the building – a good sign this will be
worth the 45 minute wait they said. Only took about 30 minutes to go through the
line and see all sorts of goldfishes in interesting aquariums with a lightshow
going on using the glass. It’s hard to explain the aquarium but it was a
worthwhile visit with a bar at the end to sit down on the steps and enjoy the
surrounding fishes with others. It was a full day of sightseeing and history
lesson and that concludes my 2nd day and another entry finished.
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