Friday May 16, Kyoto to Hiroshima, Japan

We started the day with a bus ride to Nara, south of Kyoto.  Nara is famous for several temples and deer.  The Sitka deer are a national treasure.  There are lots of deer, people can buy food to feed them.  The deer can be aggressive cuz they want food.  We saw a man in the park trying to read the newspaper but the deer was trying to eat it.

Todai-ji Temple from the 13th century, the first 2 temple burned down.  Then they built this one and it bankrupted the country.  Used up their natural resources and cost lots of money. 

The deities (Nio) at the gate are the beginning (Ungyo, closed mouth) and the end (Agyo, open mouth), protecting Buddha.  They symbolize the birth & death of man.  The lantern is from the original temple, from the 8th century.

The temple is stated to be the largest wooden structure in the world.  The blimp hanger in Oregon, now Tillamook Air Museum, is also on that list.  The rebuilt Todai-ji is smaller than the original two temples that stood here.

Buddha (Daibutsu) is the world’s largest bronze statue, 15 meters tall (50').  Now can you see why it bankrupted the country…

Legend has it if you can fit through the hole in the pillar next to Buddha your hope (wish?) will come true.  I got funny looks from the grade school kids in line with me (who else would crawl through a hole). I was surprised when I finished my pillar crawl and our tour group was at the end with their cameras.  Who knows what else they expect from me, tea ceremony and now the pillar crawl.

Next visited Daibutsuden Temple.  Nice views over Nara, which means we walked up a bunch of stairs.

Next we walked to Kohfukuji National Treasure Hall which included the Three-story Pagoda.  Ha! The pagoda was under restoration so hidden under scaffolding. 

We toured around the city and had lunch.  Then back to the bus.

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Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima. It’s always exciting to board the train when there’s 37 of us to get on the same car with 1 1/2 mins to do it in.  But we’ve done it several times. 

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Okonomiyaki is a specialty of Hiroshima, born of necessity after the war and shortage of food.  Cabbage and noodles are long-lasting staples, so put them together. Okonomiyaki is made on a grill with a crepe-like pancake, noodles and egg, then you add stuff or not with sauce. It tastes similar to yakisoba. Very good. Lots of grilled cabbage, which we love. In many of the restaurants you sit right at the grill and eat your "pancake" with a small spatula.