Day Trip to Nara - Thursday 10 October

Leisurely start to our day this morning with breakfast in our room. Savoury pastries purchased yesterday evening and washed down with coffee milk. Then an amble to the station on to the JR Nara line to catch the 9:33am Limited Express. Arrived in Nara to blazing sunshine and took advantage of the shade on one side of the street as we walked up to Nara Deer Park.

Artificial autumn flower street decorations may be the only autumn colours we get to see!

By the time we reached the park it was full of other tourists including myriad groups of elementary school children.

Alison managed to catch a shot of two deer ensuring that the deer numbers in the park don't decline. Probably less confronting than two bison doing the same act in front of your car in Custer State Park! The elementary school students nearby thought the entertainment was great as you can imagine. That is the deer not Alison taking photos!

Deer keeping up their numbers!

Walked through to the Todaiji Hall

On the way down to Todaiji Hall

and stopped to watch a large school group sitting on the ground in paint smocks with their art kits painting in pre-sketched scenes of the Todaiji Hall. Got some hellos from one group.

Happy school children painting

Philip was able to point out the plastic sheets that the Japanese spread on the ground when they need to sit down. Jessica and Philip had seen them spread out along the route of the parade at Tokyo Disneyland. Mind you the ground at Disneyland was a lot cleaner than under the trees in the Deer Park with said deer leaving trails of pooh!

Outside Todaiji Hall

Into the hall and viewed the large buddha etc and made no attempt to try to get through the "eye of the needle" hole!

The big Buddha in Todaiji Hall

We wouldn't fit!!!

Todaiji Hall

We were interviewed by two different school groups who were conducting surveys on their field trip and practising their English. Back out of the park and unfortunately (or if you asked Alison fortunately) there were no street vendors set up selling takoyaki (octopus balls). Philip and Jessica had tried them last time and Philip had threatened Alison that she needed to keep the family tradition onside. One thing that Alison did get to try was the earthquake simulation in the visitor centre just outside the park. Philip had braved it in 2008.

Alison feels the earth move!

Alison and new BFF outside the tourist centre

Then a deviation through one of the arcades that links the main streets and the purchase of a Coca Cola ice-cream floater each from McDonalds. Walked on back down the main street to Nara station and struck up a conversation with two girls in school uniform who were speaking English. They turned out to be exchange students at school in Japan for 12 months. One was from Albany in New York State and was Chinese American and the other girl was from Belgium. The girl from the USA was surprised when to her response that she was from New York, Philip asked city or state. Most people just assume city.

Short wait on the platform for a train back to Nara. Fortunately in the shade with a bit of a breeze blowing.

Back in Kyoto we headed to Aeon Mall to buy "linner" or "dunch" and breakfast for the train to Kanazawa tomorrow morning. Also went searching home shops in the mall for soba husk pillows as we really like the ones at our hotel here. Couldn't quite find what we wanted so strolled back to the hotel with our groceries. Alison asked at the hotel desk if they actually sell their pillows and was given the information that the manufacturer was about 10 minutes away by taxi but that one of the shops that we had visited should in fact stock them. Ate our "linner/dunch" and headed back to the Mall but no luck but we did discover a little ma and pa clothing/drapery store just near our hotel and they had soba husk pillows for Y580 so we bought one to try. Hope that it will get through customs!

We have now done a load of washing in the hotel laundromat and waiting for it to dry. Much better value per load than the USA.