Trip to Nara

On May 16th & 17th I went to Nara. Nara was the capital of Japan from 701 to 784 and didn’t get bombed during WWII so there are a lot of original buildings. There are actually seven places in Nara that are UNESCO world heritage sites. My first stop was to Horyu-ji which has the oldest wooden buildings in the world (late seventh century!). I took the bus from Nagoya station to Nara ($40 roundtrip!!) and then jumped on a bus in Nara, heading southwest towards Horyu-ji. It was really beautiful. I got there fairly early – before the uniformed nightmare of a multitude of simultaneous school trips began. Nara was absolutely crawling with school kids. So it was a little tough to enjoy the ancient atmosphere, but still good. There’s extra info on every picture, so please click to read more (and see a bigger photo too).

Then I went around the corner to ChÅ«gÅ«-ji which used to be a nunnery! I thought that was cute that the nunnery was right around the corner from where the monks lived.� heheheh…� It was originally the home of Prince Shotoku’s mother. He converted it into a temple when she died in 621.

After that, I got back on the bus towards Nara to meet up with my ex-student and now-friend, CHIHIRO!!!� YAY!!� It was so nice to see her again. She was a student at Toyota Nova but finished high school and started going to university in Nara. She had invited me to come stay with her so how could I resist? We met at the train station and walked around Nara a bit, went to the Nara National Museum and then back to her apartment building to celebrate her friend’s birthday. We spent about 3 hours eating dinner and chatting. Well, they chatted and I did my best to understand their fast Japanese. hahah. Had a good time but I was quite tired by the end of that so I slept really well that night. It poured down rain all night but had pretty much cleared up by the next day.

The next morning Chihiro walked me back to the station so that I could figure out where I was.� :-)� And then she went off to school and I explored on my own. I went to a TON of temples…. I can’t believe I made it to all of them in one day.

And that was the end of Nara. Thank you Chihiro!!!� I had a really fantastic time walking to all those million different temples, ponds and gardens. And just in case you want to do the same, here’s the best online map of Nara I’ve seen so far: Nara Map PDF.