When
we woke up this morning I was very pleased with the thought that today we would
be travelling by bicycle, not on foot.
After breakfast, John led us to the bike rental place where we picked up
three treadlies for around $20 for the day.
As we rode up the street, we passed a place that was renting them for
about $8, but if we hadn’t found the $20 place on the Internet, we wouldn’t
have rented bicycles at all, so we can’t complain.
We
rode over to the temple area and parked the bikes, then walked up the wide path
to the Todaiji temple – along with hundreds of other tourists. We bought a package of biscuits for the deer,
and were bossily harrassed by them until we’d handed it all over. Erin found a cute little baby deer which I’m
sure she would like to have smuggled back through customs.
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| Deer eating deer food... |
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| ...and eating a tourist brochure |
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| Cycling in Nara |
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| Todaiji Temple |
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| School kids at Todaiji Temple |
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| ...and mini school kids |
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| That's one big temple!! |
The
temple is truly amazing. It’s the
biggest wooden building in the world and the design and construction is really
something else. We went in and admired
the enormous Buddha statue inside and then Erin slid through the hole in the
bottom of one of the pillars (after watching some school girls who managed to
get through in their uniforms without too much trouble).
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| Erin going through the special post in the Todaiji Temple |
We
browsed through the souvenirs like good tourists should and bought a few things
to fill up our packs. I even managed to
replace my ‘Nara umbrella’ which I’d bought on our first trip in 2010 and has
since gone to the great umbrella graveyard in the clouds. My new umbrella is quite clever. It’s flat rather than round, so sits nicely
in my handbag. Fortunately, our run of
good weather has continued, so I might not need it in Japan!
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| Someone didn't read the sign! |
Back
near the bike park, we found a lovely little noodle bar for lunch. We then collected our bikes and rode off to
the other part of the temple area to see the five-storey pagoda. We felt a little smug riding past all the
other weary folk who were trudging from one place to the other.
Unfortunately
our visit to Nara was very short. We
took the bikes back and caught a taxi to the station, then the train to Kyoto. After checking in to yet another wonderful
Toyoko Inn, we legged it to Gion Corner, arriving just in time to catch the
nightly ‘Japanese culture in a nutshell’ performance. This consists of a tea ceremony, ikebana
(flower arranging), musical perfomances, maiko dances, a traditional comic play
and a bunraku puppet performance. It’s
aimed at the tourist and not quite the same as the ‘real deal’, but it’s a good
way to get a taste of Japan when time is short.
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| Maiko (apprentice geisha) at Gion Corner |
We
had dinner at Sukiya, a chain of restaurants which provides an easy to order,
tasty meal at a good price.
After
dinner, we strolled through the beautiful little laneways in the Gion area,
admiring the lovely old teahouses and restaurants in the geisha district, then
plodded back to the hotel with our ever-weary feet.
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| Streets of Gion |
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