Nara

The next morning I went to Nara. I got up at 4:20. I DID NOT want to get up but I wanted to get there early enough to see all. I took the train at 5:30 to Osaka, changed to Osaka subway, the n that took me to Nara. Maybe only two hours total travel time. I bought a 180 yen ticket to get on. Should cost 2200 yen to get off in Nara though. I listened to the news and how Mark Foley is a perv for about 2 hours and I was there, I got a nice daytime view of Osaka as well. I walked past the gate of the ticket taker while she was talking to someone and didn’t pay. Its bad I know but I was n a budget until next payday. I followed some foreign looking tourists and they led me to a famous pagoda (Pictured above) Its 5 stories and is the second biggest in Japan, 1st is in Kyoto. Then I went to a lake with 1000 paper lantern surrounding it. Very peaceful looking.

Then I fond the Todai-ji Temple. This is where the giant Buddha is stationed. It was 500yen to get in. Cost me more to get in here than to get from himeji! It was worth it. There were monks walking around amongst the many Japanese and foreign tourists. Nara is one of the oldest cities in all of Japan. The firs cool thing were the statues carved from wood of guardians at the old entrance. They are amazing, how someone could carve such large and detailed statues back then is incredible. In my book it said they are known as some of the finest wooden statues in the world. Then I paid the monks and got into the hall of the Buddha. Incredible in size! How they could’ve made that in the 700's blows me away!!! The ear alone is almost 9 ft tall! Other great statues in the room as well, but none as breathtaking. There also is a pillar which there is a claim that if you can squeeze through it you will be blessed. So all the little school children try and squirm through it. Then some British lady tried when I was watching and got her big ass stuck. It was soo funny. Her husband had to push her then pull her out. Damn foreigners....

Then I went to another world heritage site, that of the many lanterns. It has thousands of very old lanterns (concrete ones) lining over a mile of peaceful walkways. Many little temples along the way too. I wondered this and decided to take my own paths and got VERY lost. It took over an hor to find my bearings and asked over 8 people how to make it back to the station. I finally found a train to Kyoto and was in a seat at 11:45. So Nara took me only 4 hours and I walked the whole thing. No buses...just speed walking!