Let's Go to Kyoto! Day 3: Torii Gates and Badly-Behaved Deer

Sorry to keep everyone waiting! I had quite the busy week last week, with placement testing and some orientation stuff, on top of my first homework assignment of the semester (which I'm still working on). Classes start again on Tuesday, and I'll be in the 7th level of language classes this semester, which is exciting but I'm anticipating having a LOT of homework. That's okay though; I suppose it just means I'm learning that much more!

We slept in a bit on Day 3, since we had been quite tired from all the walking. Our agenda for the day included stopping by a BUNCH of notable landmarks (some of which were UNESCO sites, of course) in both Kyoto and Nara, and because we had slept in, we expected our day to be a bit longer than the previous days.

First up for the day was Fushimi Inari-taisha. Sitting at the base of a mountain, Fushimi Inari-taisha is famous for its torii-lined path up to the top.

Margaret and I decided to go as far up the mountain as we could, even though due to the length of the trail, we wouldn't be able to make it all the way to the top and still make it to our other destinations on time. I think we made it a good halfway or so, though, which was about forty-five minutes round-trip.

The start of the trail!

Though the path forks here, both paths meet back up after about 100 yards or so.

Foxes are an important aspect of Fushimi Inari, so the ema here are fox heads!

Monkey warning! We didn't see any though. :(

Some more ema here; these ones are shaped like torii!

The torii were being re-painted the day we were there. That was neat to see.

The torii are donated by companies from all around Japan. One side of the torii lists the company name.

This side of the torii lists the date of donation.

After visiting Fushimi Inari, Margaret and I were off to Uji! Uji is featured in the last ten chapters of The Tale of Genji, so that was really cool in my opinion, what with me being a Japanese literature major and all. We didn't visit the Tale of Genji Museum though, but that's okay. "Genji" wasn't exactly my favorite work anyway.

I did, however, take a photo of this "Genji"-themed gate thing.

 Our main reason for visiting Uji was to see Byodo-in, a Buddhist temple and UNESCO World Heritage site that's also featured on the 10 yen coin. We had to walk about 20 minutes from the station, and it was nice to explore Uji a bit. It had a really nice small-town kind of feel.

One of the streets on the way to Byodo-in. I really liked the older-style architecture.

This way to Byodo-in!

Some background information on Byodo-in. Click to enlarge.

The Phoenix Hall from the front.

After visiting Byodo-in and its associated museum (no pictures were allowed), we made our way back to the station to catch a train to Nara!

We found this neat mailbox in front of Uji station!

One of the trains bound for Nara. We caught an express instead of one of these.

The great thing about Nara, in my opinion, is that most of its world-famous sites are located in the same area. If you only have an afternoon to do Nara, like we did, your one-stop sightseeing place would definitely be Nara Park. Though the deer wander all around Nara, they tend to stick around Nara Park, as there's plenty of space for them to roam without the dangers of traffic.

First up on our Nara Park tour was Kasuga Taisha, a shinto shrine and UNESCO World Heritage site. One of the unique characteristics of Kasuga Taisha is its many bronze lanterns within the shrine in addition to the 1000 stone lanterns located outside. Kasuga Taisha is located just outside Deer Park, an area where the deer have a lot of open space to just roam, so we had lots of time to meet the deer on the way up. Let me tell you one thing, though. These deer may look cute, but they are MONSTERS.

They may LOOK serene, but...

They're just crazed eating machines, really. This one's eating a receipt. #1 in my "Deer Behaving Badly" series.

Attempting to open this kid's backpack. "Deer Behaving Badly" #2.

I tried to get him to take a picture with me, but then he ran away. What a jerk.

Some of the 1000 lanterns outside of the shrine.

The main entrance to the shrine.

This large tree was right inside the shrine grounds.

Nara really loves its deer... The Kasuga Taisha temizuya is even a deer!

After Kasuga Taisha, we moved on to Todaiji, another World Heritage site, which, in addition to being the largest wooden building in the world, also houses the largest statue of the Buddha Vairocana. It's a pretty cool place, I have to say. I was really glad to be able to come back and visit again (I saw Todaiji in 2008 with my high school Japanese class).

There are more deer that hang out around Todaiji, probably because they know that there are tourists about who are willing to buy and feed them deer biscuits (しかせんべい). Margaret and I, knowing full well the danger we would face by doing so, decided to take the plunge and buy a couple of ￥150 biscuit packs to feed the deer. It ended up being terrifying, as expected.

The horde approaches. "Deer Behaving Badly" #3.

They were actually being pretty polite for Margaret. I was a bit jealous.

They were less than considerate towards me, especially after I ran out of biscuits. "Deer Behaving Badly" #4.

And I'm just not quite sure what this guy was doing...

After feeding the deer and sanitizing our hands (we had made sure to pick up some hand sanitizer from a drug store before we left Kyoto, thank goodness), we decided to head in to Todaiji.

The main gate.

This picture was taken from several hundred meters away... The temple is HUGE!

I'm serious. It's GIANT.

I really liked how elaborate the carving on this lantern was.

The daibutsu!

One of the other features of Todaiji is a hole in one of its pillars. This hole is said to be the same size as the daibutsu's nostril, and anyone who can fit through it will be granted enlightenment in their next reincarnation.

It's pretty tiny.

I fit through in 2008!

And I did it again four years later. Here I am, feeling like a CHAMPION.

On the way out, we encountered some more deer behaving badly.

They were biting his pants. "Deer Behaving Badly" #5.

Someone really ought to teach them some manners... "Deer Behaving Badly" #6.

After Todaiji, we were getting pretty tired. We weren't too tired for one more World Heritage site, though! We headed off to the other side of the park to see Kofuku-ji. Unfortunately, most of the temple was under renovation, so it wasn't that interesting. I still got some good pictures though!

The sign says the renovation will be done in SIX YEARS. A lot of work goes into these restorations!

After checking out Kofuku-ji, we hopped on a bus back to Nara station in order to head back to Kyoto.

The old Nara station. I thought it was a GORGEOUS building.

When we got back to Kyoto, we treated ourselves to a delicious tenpura dinner before heading back to our hotel to watch ridiculous dramas and fall asleep.

All in all, I'd have to say it was a VERY successful day!