Trip with Marian: Nara

We left the hotel at 9am and drove  a little over an hour to the city of Nara.  We stopped at Nara Park.  It is a HUGE tourist park with a ton of different shrines and temples of all sizes.  The main attraction was the Todaiji Temple, which is the largest wooden building in the world and it houses (I think) the largest brass Buddha statue in the world.  We had several hours to roam the park and it was plenty of time to do that.  I got totally and absolutely lost.  There are tons of walking paths that criss cross, and lots of souvenir shops and lots of shrines and temples and the map was not very helpful.  Fortunately we had lots of time to get un lost.

The park is full of Sika deer.  Someone a long time ago decided these deer were messengers of the gods, so they are revered and plentiful and spoiled.  They sell little deer crackers to feed them and the deer are so well fed that sometimes they dont' find it worth the effort to come and get the food.  We enjoyed the deer and the farther you went into the park, the happier the deer were to eat from your hand.

This is the largest wooden structure in the world.  Are you impressed?!

Yep, getting our selfie in!

Marian was less than impressed.   But the building was huge!

This is the giant Buddha. It was incredibly hard to get a good photo because of the angles, so this was the best I got.

This was a considerable smaller statue right next to Buddha.  I liked it because it was more fun and easier to photograph!

There were a couple of these cool guys, but with the light coming from behind, it didn't make for great pictures.

Marian doing the heroic pose.

Just a random shrine by the path.

I found a deer!  She's looking for a snack.

I have no idea what these are but there were lines and lines of them.  Pretty cool.

More random shrines along the path.....

Marian with the deer. She had fun.

I wanted to show how many deer there were roaming around.  A lot!

With a cool tree stump like this, a photo is a must! 

And then we had to do this.

With all the deer how could we not take a bunch of deer shots?!  They were just so cute!  

And hey, deer!

I think this was temple dedicated to relationships.  I forgot the name.  It was really pretty though.

I was feeling artsy.

And the long rows of lanterns were so impressive.

Hello, deer!

This was interesting.  I saw this guy in an attitude of prayer and surreptitiously zoomed the camera in for a shot.  As I was putting my camera away, he stood upright and pulled out a camera and took a picture!

We stopped at an Udon Noodle shop for lunch.  Marian really likes it but I'm less impressed.  I'm more a yakisoba kind of girl.

Hey, look!  More deer!

My new best friend.

They were guarding this torii.

And.... BEST sign ever!

On the 6 hour bus ride home, we stopped for dinner.  Marian decided to sample this.  Yep, octopus tentacle.  It was hard to get a little bite- very chewy.  But she gave it her best and tried it!