Nara 奈良市 - January 2 2007

Nara is 150km from Nagoya or two and a half hours by car unless you speed.

Nara is the ancient capital of Japan before it moved to Kyoto and then to Tokyo. Many of its buildings originally date from the AD 700's.

What surprised me was the fact that the huge park contains some amazing buildings and is well worth the trip, but the city itself is indistinguishable from any other city in Japan. It strange sometimes to see these pockets of history in a modern world. Driving into town I could not distinguish anything built less than 50 years ago. It is very different to Europe where whole towns have quite different looks.

We really should check the weather before we travel. It was cold but dry when we left Nagoya, but by the time we reached Nara, it was pouring rain, which it did the whole time we were there.

This photo is from the car's Navi (GPS). The navi is in freeway mode 32km from our destination and it is helpfully telling us that it is dangerous because of the rain. It also has light blue bars on either side of the road that indicate that the traffic is light.

Pam and Parker arriving in Nara. Because of the deer in the large park, poor old Parker had to stay in the car.

Japanese gardens on the way to the park

World heritage sign

Todai-ji temple

Todai-ji is a Buddhist temple . Said to be the largest wooden building in the world. The temple was established in AD745 the Buddha housed inside was completed six years later. The building and the Buddha have been replaced and modified over the following 1200 years. The buildings have twice burned down, and earthquakes have partially destroyed the Buddha. The current building was completed in 1709.

Tōdai-ji temple gate

Tōdai-ji temple (From inside the gate). You can see people out the front of the building that contains the giant Buddha. Consider that the Buddha inside nearly reaches the roof and you get some concept of how big a 15 meter high statue actually is.

Tōdai-ji temple from the steps in the photo above, looking back toward the main gate.

Tōdai-ji temple - Close-up of one of the flagpoles lining the walkway in the photo above.

Omikuji - Fortunes tied to a tree in the Tōdai-ji temple complex.

Vairocana or Daibutsu (great Buddha) 14.98 meters tall.

"the Buddha was completed in 751, having consumed most of Japan's bronze production for several years and leaving the country almost bankrupt" - wiki

The photo is terrible at giving a sense of scale. The statue is enormous

An awful photo, but it does give some scale. This is taken from the back of the statue. You can just make out the Buddha's shoulders

Shopping around the base of the Buddha. fortunes, postcards, candles,

Omikuji Pam and I both got our fortunes. Unfortunately Pam's was terrible, (bad luck for her) and she had to leave it tied to the temple wall so she didn't bring any bad luck home with her

This is my fortune. Very comprehensive.

Fortunes tied to the temple wall

Another statue in the Tōdai-ji temple

In the gift shop Buddha holding........Hello Kitty

Suzaku-mon

Reconstruction of Suzaku-mon, Nara's main gate , a remainder of the Heijo Palace, the imperial palace during the Nara period.Suprisingly nobody knows what the original gate looked like so the new gate is an educated guess.

The reconstruction was sponsored by the Japanese construction company Takenaka and the design has been reinforced with modern concrete (as usual for reconstructed monuments).

Statue in the Suzaku-mon

Sacred deer

Walking through the park

Sweet potato vendor working away

There is bean paste in those things .

Kasuga Shrine and surrounds

Another of the buildings that make up part of Nara's UNESCO world heritage listing, Kasuga Shinto shrine was established in AD768, but demolished and rebuilt exactly the same every 20 years (rebuilt over 50 times!) until 1863 from which the current building dates.