Day 11 - 05/23/18. Last Full Day in Kyoto

Day 11: Wednesday Rainy afternoon with the sacred deer and immense buddhas

Deers as messengers from the gods

We caught the 1:47 PM LTD Express from Imadegawa and arrived at Nara Park at about 3 PM in the afternoon.  We decided to catch a bus rather than walk the 20 minutes from the station to the park.  What a mistake!  A gridlock caused by buses picking up the children visiting the park trapped us between stops and we were unable to get off for almost 20 minutes itself.  We finally abandoned the bus in a sea of other buses locked in traffic and within a few short minutes, were in the park with the cutest deer everywhere.

Nara Park (奈良公園 Nara Kōen) is a public park located in the city of Nara, Japan, at the foot of Mount Wakakusa, established in 1300s and one of the oldest parks in Japan. Administratively, the park is under the control of Nara Prefecture. Over 1,200 wild sika deer (シカ or 鹿 shika) freely roaming around in the park are classified as a natural treasure. While the official size of the park is about 502 hectares (1,240 acres), the area including the grounds of Tōdai-ji, Kōfuku-ji, and Kasuga Shrine, which are either on the edge or surrounded by Nara Park, is as large as 660 hectares (1,600 acres).

Crying for her mom, but another will do.

 

Cookie?

Buck and Baby

Little One saying good-bye to the deer

Cute enough to buy me?

Did someone say food?

From Wikipedia: Tōdai-ji (東大寺, Eastern Great Temple)[1] is a Buddhist temple complex that was once one of the powerful Seven Great Temples, located in the city of Nara, Japan. Its Great Buddha Hall (大仏殿 Daibutsuden) houses the world's largest bronze statue of the Buddha^[2] Vairocana,^[3] known in Japanese as Daibutsu (大仏). The temple also serves as the Japanese headquarters of the Kegon school of Buddhism. The temple is a listed UNESCO World Heritage Site as one of the "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara", together with seven other sites including temples, shrines and places in the city of Nara. Deer, regarded as messengers of the gods in the Shinto religion, roam the grounds freely.

Largest bronze Buddha in the world

Warrior guardian on Right Flank

Warrior Guardian on Left Flank

Goddess 2- right hand raised

Goddess 1 - left hand raised

Late lunch in Nara: at the Warabe Yorokobian, our first time for Soba (buckwheat) noodles, served on this cold wet evening with a hot duck and scallion broth which we split and an appetizer sized array of tofu stuffed with gingered rice and deep fat fried.