I THINK I AM IN JAPAN?

Whoo. Today I went to Nara and took tons of photos.

To get to Nara you have to take the Karasuma subway down to Kyoto Station (19 minutes) and from Kyoto station take the Kintetsu Railway to Kintetsu Nara Station. I took the "Limited Express Rapid" or the "Shinkansen", it's faster and has fewer stops. Right before leaving I saw a pagoda right in the middle of the city, I tried to take a picture but it didn't turn out too well through the glass.



After a 35 minutes train ride I was right in the heart of Nara. I went to the tourist information room and got an English map to help me find my way. When I exited the station I quickly learned that's pretty much impossibly, because there are wooden signs EVERYWHERE pointing in the location of all the sights, they even had distances labelled.

It was raining so I finally decided to buy an umbrella, it's a tiny blue one but it works. All of Nara's manhole covers have art on them:



Pretty much all attractions in Nara border Nara Park, which is a huge park. The interesting thing about the park, however, is the deer. It is filled with completely tame deer. They are not fenced in and walk freely. I saw a few cross busy intersections. Apparently in the shinto religion the deer of Nara were looked upon as gods (kami) so they were treated well and allowed to walk freely.









Even though the deer are tame they are hungry little bastards. Here is one eating an entire folded map from the basket of a fallen bicycle. He chewed and swallowed it.



And here is a pride of deer going for the ultimate kill; small asian child.



At first I thought the kid had a chance, he had strong legs. However, due to the wetness of the ground he slipped, and there the deer pounced on him, tearing him to shreds and goring him with their felt-like antlers.

From the park you could see the five-story pagoda. As well as a smaller building next to it.









Past the pagoda was a fountain with the Nara National Museum, I didn't go in. From there you go into another park with deer everywhere, and finally arrive at Todaiji Temple. It's huge.









I payed the 500 yen for a ticket INSIDE the big temple, but I left it on the railing when I readjusted my backpack, and when I ran back to get it didn't see it, so it must have been taken or thrown away. Oh well.

From Todaiji I climbed a steep hill and found a massive wooden building, I'm not sure exactly what it was, some kind of temple. All I know is it rewarded me with one of the best horizons I have ever seen.











From there I came back down and looked around a bit then decided to head back to Nara Station and take the train to Kyoto Station. Nara's signs and Fare charts were ALL in Japanese, no English. I had no idea how much anything was, or WHERE anything was. Finally I walked into Information and the guy spoke English. He bought the ticket for me on his computer, and I got exactly what I wanted. I slept most of the way back to Kyoto Station.

At Kyoto I decided to get dinner and went into a fancy looking Japanese resturaunt. I decided to order "No. 3" aka "The Eel Dinner Set". It was a huge dinner of eel. I figured I might as well try it.

When my food came I realized just how much food I got. I was so amazed I took a picture.



I got grilled eel, grilled eel in egg, grilled eel and egg soup (the pot over the fire), grilled fish, pickles, raw fish, rice, and soup.

I have to say it was the most forced meal I've ever had. I don't really like eel I guess, and at the moment I wasn't really wanting egg. I ate most of it, but didn't enjoy very much of it. There was a piece of white raw fish I had that I had to chew for at least 5 minutes before I could even swallow it, it was like biting into a lump of fat. Not the best dinner experience, but it was still an adventure.

After dinner I went by the bookstore and noticed they had a selection of English books! I finished my Huraki Murakami book on the plane so I had nothing on the way home to read. What did they have, by chance? Haruki Murakami! I bought his only nonfiction book "Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche". It's about the Sarin gas attack on the subway by the weird Japanese cult a few years ago.

After buying the book I went to a gift shop and found a shirt for Nathan Bowler, and a gift for Grandma. By that time it was about time to head home. Now that I was in Kyoto Station it was as simple as taking the Subway up to Matsugasaki and a simple 2 minute walk back to the Green Peace.

I have TONS more photos I took, but didn't show here, so go HERE to view them. Remember, if you want to look at photos for any particular day just go to http://www.ithinkiaminjapan.com/japan/ and click on the corresponding date. Also, simple http://www.ithinkiaminjapan.com/xx-xx-xx/ works. Substitute the X's for the date, of course. It can be any date.