Installment 5: The Longest Day

NOTE:

Temples are buddhist and generally have images of, you guessed it, Buddha.

Shrines, however, are Shinto in religion. Shinto is the original Japanese religion based on nature gods and such.

Most Japanese celebrate holidays and ceremonies of both religions. For example, many families belong to a specific Buddhist sect and celebrate the Buddhism-related tradition of tolling the temple bell 108 times on New Year's Eve. However, it is also common to have a Shinto wedding ceremony when you get married.

Actually, nowdays, Western-style Christian (Protestant, Catholic, Lutheran, you name it) are held after the Shinto-style wedding. More on that another day.


Our second day was the longest. We took the train from Kyoto to go to Byodoin. It's a lovely temple with a museum hidden in the back of the grounds.

The phoenixes on the very top left and right edges of the temple roof are famous.


A Weeping Cherry tree in almost full bloom.


The Side View of Byodoin.



Our next stop was Nara we took the train there; a nap too.


In Nara,Deer were everywhere! I thought "deer park" would be like a petting zoo, but in reality it's deer all over an entire gigantic area full of pagodas, famous temples and many other sites. It's more like a "deer town." I loved them. If I was homeless, I'd stay there and live with the deer. Ryan let me buy some Yaki Imo (a fire-baked sweet potato) to feed myself and the deer.


Unfortunately I chose some young deer since they looked cute, it turned out they were a bit...petulant.
In the video that wierd girl wearing her husband's jacket is tyring to escape by walking away slowly because running away might get them all excited and trample her. She also starts telling the deer "No, I'm hungry, I'm hungry," in a fruitless effort to appeal to them that maybe she likes Yaki Imo too and they should just be happy she shared with them in the first place...*click the play button to play!*



Then we saw Todaiji Temple it's one of the largest wooden structures in the world and houses Japan's largest Buddha made of bronze. So this IS the biggest one made of bronze...the Kamakura one is the largest OUTDOOR buddha made of bronze.

Todaiji and Stacey and Jeremy


The Big Bronze Buddha



We then hiked on to Kasuga Shrine. There are over 3,000 lanterns (most are made of stone) and they're lit only twice each year. We got followed by more deer that had the munchies. I couldn't help it, I just loved them! They were so big eyed, silent and sniffely.

Stacey and Jeremy and a lot of stone lanterns.



We returned to the hostel only to decide at around 8pm to hike the famous Fushimi Inari Tori (gate)Trail. Fushimi Inari is a shrine to the fox god named Inari. This was also in that movie (Memoirs...). The trail goes up a tall hill and in a circular path and almost all of it is lined by these vermillion gates which are a part of all Shinto Shrines. Every 10th gate was had a lantern hanging from it.



After our little night hike, we stopped at Maruyama Koen (Koen is Park) at around 11:30pm to see the famous, very old, cherry tree. In this image it's not yet in full bloom.