We let the kids sleep in a bit this day.
After hemming and hawing a bit the day before, we had decided that we were going to Nara to visit a HUGE temple with an equally HUGE Buddha in it.
And, to see more deer.
Can't get enough of those deer.
Ohayo gozaimasu, Wolfie!
The boys patiently waited for us in front of the hotel elevators.
We stopped by the Lawson's (convenience store) before getting on the train to Nara.
Mikey found BIG Coolish!
Katie found some GF potato chips.
Mikey tried Koara no Machi (Koala March).
They're little koala cookies with chocolate filling.
Each koala had a different design.
He really liked them.
You can sometimes find these in grocery stores here in the PNW.
I think it took us about an hour or so to get to Nara from Osaka.
As we were leaving the train station to start our adventure, we encountered this super cute display.
I made the kids pose for a photo.
Outside it was POURING rain.
We stopped to put up our umbrellas and threw a poncho over Mikey.
Since we had gotten a semi-late start, we decided to stop for lunch first.
Huzbend had found a highly recommended GF place in Nara.
We had to go on a bit of an expedition to find it.....
We had to walk through some residential neighborhoods to find it.
Shops/restaurants (unless they're chain) are very, very small.
They are usually on the bottom floor of a very narrow apartment building.
Found it!
Say hello to "Gluten Free is the New Black"
There was room for maybe six to eight people to sit here simultaneously, along with the display counter and small bathroom.
When we arrived, there was a couple eating brunch.
There was one lady who ran the joint.
Here's the display case of GF goodies - quiches, tarts, brownies, muffins, breads and cake.
There were limited nuts used as well - just walnuts and almonds.
Just because, we started the kids off with "dessert".
Mikey had banana bread and Katie had lamington.
Lamington is an Australian cake soaked in chocolate sauce and covered with desiccated coconut.
After their treat, we ordered some toast meals - Mikey had raisin toast, Katie had plain toast, I had toast with egg and Huzbend had toast with avocado. Each meal, (except Mikey's) came with a small salad, soy yogurt and jam.
It was delicious!
Everyone ate their meals and we even bought more lamington and banana bread for the road.
Katie had me take this picture of a cute sign that was on a fence across the street from the restaurant.
We made our way to Nara Park.
Before we even got there, we saw the deer.
They were everywhere.
As we waited to cross the street into the park, some deer waited along with us.
Time to cross!
Deer first.
A little bit about the deer at Nara Park.
These deer are not anywhere near as
polite as the deer that live on Miyajima island.
There are vendors that sell crackers you can feed to them. Because of this, they’re
much more food aggressive and will rush at anyone that has anything resembling crackers in their hands.
They'll also eat things out of your pocket, your bags and chomp at your shirt and pants.
Because they eat all sorts of stuff that's not good for them, their poop
is like dog poop and not like deer poop – and it's EVERYWHERE.
These deer, like
the Miyajima deer, used to be sacred (they were seen as messengers to the
gods), but are no longer.
They are now protected as National Treasures.
They may be National Treasures, but I say they're furry pain in the asses.
The kids had no such qualms about the deer.
They just deemed them "pushier" than the other deer.
It didn't take away from their cuteness, I guess.
They played with the deer while Huzbend bought tickets to some of the parks main attractions.
A monk at the entrance to this temple gave Mikey a paper crane.
The first temple we visited was Tokondo Hall (aka Eastern Golden Hall) built in 1425.
It's a Buddhist temple.
Couldn't take pictures inside.
Next to it is a 5 story pagoda built in 1426.
You can't go in pagodas.
It started to rain again.
We walked over to look at Kofuku-ji Temple and its accompanying three story pagoda.
It was reconstructed in 2018.
We didn't enter it though as it required separate admission.
We walked down to a smaller hall at the end of the walkway just to see what was there.
Mikey asked if he could give a donation so that he could ring a bell.
I have no idea what the significance of the bell was.
People would make their donation, ring the bell once and then put their hands together as if praying.
We let him give it a try.
Here is a full shot of Kofuku-ji Temple.
It's pretty big.
And here are some maintenance workers who blew by us in this tiny work truck.
We
stopped at one more building – Kofuku-ji Kokuho-Kan Museum - which houses the Buddhist works of art that
used to be over at the temple. They’re considered National Treasures. There
were lots of statues, artifacts, paintings and such. Most impressive of which was the
thousand armed kannon (not having 1000 arms really - I explained that in my last post) and some cool creepy demon
statues.
(I think this brochure is from another temple. But, you get the idea.)
All in all, Nara Park covers over 1500 acres.
We meandered slowly, taking in the beauty of the park.
It is possible to find parts that are quite serene and people-free.
But, there are always deer.
"WHATCHOO LOOKIN' AT?!?!?!
YOU GOTTA CRACKER?!?"
This has nothing to do with anything.
Just a peculiarity of Japan.
The walk and do-not-walk signs are always business men with hats on.
The kids spotted another baby deer.
Sigh. The poopy deer.
Although there was poop everywhere, we did not see a single deer pooping.
I will say that it was very entertaining to watch the deer overwhelm the people that had purchased crackers.
They ended up screaming and running away as a group of deer chase them.
Hahahahahaha. Dumb tourists.
Oh wait.
What?
Did we feed the deer?
OF COURSE WE DID.
I bought a pack of deer crackers for the kids to share.
Here I am trying to get back to the kids with the pack of crackers.
There was this one male deer who was a pain in the ass.
Literally.
This is a picture of him BITING MY ASS.
This earned him the name Jerky McDeerface.
Here he is to Katie's right.
To spare the kids the onrush of deer, I held the crackers and gave them each one at a time to run off to feed the deer that they thought was cutest.
I guess they thought Jerky McDeerface was pretty cute because he got most of our crackers.
Either that or he was the pushiest.
I can vouch for that.
Nara deer are famous for bowing.
If you bow to them, they will bow back.
Here's Jerky bowing at Katie.
He was rewarded with a cracker.
I did read that deer bow their heads before they ram you....so there's that.
Mikey quickly dispensed his crackers to the nearby deer.
Another one to Jerky.....
And some to this cute doe hiding behind a fence.
Katie was more discerning in her choice of who got crackers.
She spread the wealth, even tracking down a baby deer in a field so that she could give him one.
Yes.
I fed a deer.
Huzbend did not.
He was having too much fun taking pictures of me being molested by deer.
Katie even went clear across the field to feed some deer.
Finally, the crackers were gone and we said goodbye to Jerky McDeerface.
Sayonara, Jerky-san!
There are signs all over the park warning people that the deer can get aggressive.
The only person harmed in the feeding of the deer was Mikey.
A deer kicked him in the shin. You can see the small bruise on his shin.
Picture evidence!
It
was getting rainy again, so we ducked into the Nara National Museum. The
building dates to 1889. It’s full, totally chock full, of Japanese Buddhist
art. Lots and lots and lots of statues.
Sorry, no pictures allowed.
It had an underground passageway that led to another part of the museum.
It housed the museum cafe, gift shop, pictures of deer and corny photo ops.
The other part of the museum housed an exhibit that was geared towards kids.
It was about "Creatures in Faith" and spotlighted sacred animals in local religions.
Again, no pictures of the displays.
There was a brochure on which the kids could answer questions about
the displays and then trade it in to get a sticker. There was a
place that you could draw a picture of your favorite animal as part of the
brochure. I thought all you had to do was answer the questions, but nope you
had to do the WHOLE thing to get the sticker.
Katie had no issue with this as she loves to
draw…but Mikey did.
Here's Katie's picture.
It was of a dog that was laying on top of a helmet.
All the kids pictures got posted on a wall at the end of the display.
I'm not sure what was up with Mikey. Tired maybe? Hungry maybe?
He
had a mini mental breakdown about what he was gonna draw and how it looked and that when he was done with his picture he didn't get to hang it up, the lady hung it up for him.
If you look closely, you can see a tear in his right eye.
The sticker that caused so much trouble.....
We decided it was time to sit down and have a little rest and a snack.
We went back down to a rest area in the underground passageway to eat the desserty items that we picked up earlier at 'Gluten Free is the New Black'.
It was just what everyone, especially Mikey, needed.
Off we went to visit the main draw of Nara Park, Todai-ji Temple.
Besides the deer, here is a picture of the other mascot of Nara Park, a Buddha with deer antlers.
We entered the southern gate to get to the grounds of the temple.
The gate is named Nandai-mon.
Nestled inside are two 26 foot tall wooden muscular guardians called "Ni-o" or "Kongo Rikishi".
One on either side.
Here's the other side.
We paid our admission and entered the next gate to access the main hall.
This is Todai-ji.
Todai-ji is huge. It was originally built in 752.
It has
been rebuilt a few times due to fire – it's an all wood building.
The most
recent rebuilding was 1709 and now its actually 30% smaller then the original.
You gotta see
this place to believe it.
Inside the temple, there is a super huge
bronze Buddha statue that weighs in at about 500 tons and is about 49 feet
tall.
We'd had our picture taken when we last visited in 2004.
So, we asked Katie to help us recreate it.
AK.
What happened?
Old.
Old happened.
And maybe kids.
Mikey wanted to take a picture too.
Ha!
He did this on purpose, by the way.
Proof that we were all there.
A picture with my favorite part of any building - the roof.
Here we go........
Did I mention it was big?
Here is the giant Buddha.
It's almost impossible to get a picture illustrating how big it is.
High Five, Buddha!
In the back right hand corner of the main hall,
behind the giant Buddha, there’s a hole in the base of one of the 65 foot wood
columns that holds up the building.
People like to crawl through it.
In my
research, I found that the hole is the same size as one of the Buddha statues
nostrils and that if you crawl through you will reach enlightenment in your
next life.
There is usually a line for this experience.
But, there was NO-ONE
there. So, the kids got to walk right up and try.
The hole is about 1 foot wide by 15 inches tall.
Mikey was first.
Success!
Katie had to work just a biiiiit harder.
Her first approach wasn't working.
She backed out and rethought her strategy.
Arm first this time.
I think at this point she was a little stuck....
She pushed through the pain.
The other arm made its appearance!
It was smooth sailing after that.
Success!
One last look at the giant Buddha as we left the temple.
Everyone waited patiently for me to take my pictures.
Done yet?
We made our way out of Todai-ji to start heading back to the train station.
Katie co-opted my camera to take pictures of more deer.
Unfortunately, she and Mikey were in a "No Admittance" section.
We had to call them back after they were almost run over by a golf cart.
Katie said it was worth it to see the fuzzy baby deer.
We
took a slight detour up a hill to an empty shrine called Tamukeyama Hachimangu Shrine.
It was very quiet and peaceful.
There were not very many people here and just a few deer.
It was a nice respite from the craziness down near the main tourist draws.
We continued to make our way out of the park.
We were kinda out in the boonies.....
...and then we noticed this sign about boar sightings.
The "mean" boar pictured on the sign was cute.
I think that diluted their message a bit.
Time to head toward more crowded areas and say goodbye to Nara park and its fuzzy residents.
We FINALLY made it out of the park and stopped on the way to the train station for some
Coolish and snacks.
Rich grabbed what he thought were four pancakes in a
package for myself and him to share.
It was actually two PANCAKE SANDWICHES!
Inside each sandwich was some
margarine and a kind of maple syrup jelly.
OMG. I want one right now.
We decided to stop at an Italian restaurant that was listed as having GF pasta options.
We got to the
place before it opened. When they did open, about 20 minutes later, we asked if
they could handle gluten allergies. The one dude working there and the chef said, "No, sorry."
Bummer. We decided to head back to Osaka to find something to eat.
We made it back to Nara station. Before we got on the train back to Osaka, we
stopped to use the bathroom and pick up something in a grocery store – I have
no idea what.
This is the time when the day kinda turned to crap.
We got back to Osaka and went on a
quest to find this Mexican restaurant that had gotten good reviews and could do GF.
We
changed trains and everything. We got there and it was packed.
Remember what I
said about super small restaurants? This one fit maybe a dozen people.
The
owner – he was Mexican, but spoke English - came out and asked if we had
reservations.
We didn’t. He apologized, said they were booked solid and we went on our way.
Ugh.
We were starving. And tired.
AND, it was late by this point.
Options were
getting slim to find food that:
1) the kids could eat
2) that wasn’t too out of the way
3) that would be an actual meal
After thinking about McDonald’s, we settled on Dennys.
Yes, Denny’s.
We had seen reviews that they could do GF.
Another train ride and a walk, and we were there.
The kids were exhausted and so were we.
We had to use our phones to translate the menus.
And so now we can tell you from experience that the Denny's in Japan is.....
….just like Denny's here.
Nuthin to write home about (but I guess enough to blog about).
EXCEPT, they had a free refill drink
section.
Katie ordered a steak.
We double checked it with our NIMA to see if it was indeed GF. Smiley face said that it was.
She ate a good portion of it.
It was super chewy.
I got a turkey club.
Strangely, it had ketchup and egg on it.
It was surprisingly yummy.
The boys got spaghetti with meat sauce.
Mikey LOVED it. He ate his entire plate and wanted more.
He declared it, "DUH-LICIOUS!"
Huzbend?
Well, he didn't agree.
He had to force himself to eat half of it.
Oh well.
At least we had food in our bellies.
Thank you, Japanese Denny's?
We made our way back to the hotel.
After showers and tooth brushing, the kids fell into bed.
Huzbend and I shoved everything back into our suitcases as they got to sleep.
Tomorrow we were saying goodbye to Osaka and moving on to Tokyo.
