Day 4 – Deer Uji

By Drew

19,178 Steps Taken – 9.97 kms walked

9 o’clock starts definitely help. It means that by 9:30 you have usually had some breakfast and are on the train making your way to whatever adventure has been planned for the day. Our group of 9 made our way towards Nara while the others went on their own adventure. It is really quite lucky that the trains are frequent because we ended up jumping on and off about three different trains before eventually making our way to Nara.

Now Nara is beautiful! And if you remember the last time Dani wrote about this place, you will remember that it is home to hundreds of deer. They most definitely are not afraid of people because we provide for them. Provide them delicious deer cookies for 150 Yen. Which they can smell. They will follow you, they will find you, and then they will bow at you until you give them the cookies. One of the highlights is always watching people who are unaware of what is going to happen start squealing and running because they are now being chased by groups of deers who want nothing more than a tasty snack.

After feeding the wildlife, we started making our way towards Todaiji Temple. There were a few shops along the way where Dani, Karen and Tim tried their luck at the Gachapon machines and ended up with some cool little prizes. The temple holds one of the largest Buddha statues I have ever seen. You make your way through this beautiful, large courtyard and find yourself face-to-face with this very imposing, and impressive statue. The rest of the shrine is dedicated to other deities who protect Buddha and the shrine itself. Dani found a Temple Book which you take with you to the different temples in Japan and they write the name of the temple in Japanese calligraphy and then stamp the book. This was the first of four entries in the journal today.

From here it was time to say goodbye to Tim as the remaining eight party members went to Uji and the Byodo-in Temple. After a leisurely stroll to the temple (okay that is a lie, we got some food and had to rush to the temple before it closed) we made it with about 30 minutes to spare. Dani and I went straight to the temple stamp centre here and ended up with two new stamps in the Temple Book. Byodo-in Temple is home to the Phoenix and the roof of the temple is protected by two very large phoenix statues. A number of photographs were taken here and the beautiful gardens surrounding the temple. Unfortunately the main section, the Phoenix Hall, was closed for renovations (like so many things we have encountered here) so we had to give that a miss this time around.

A quick stroll back towards the station, with a stop of at the statue dedicated to the author of The Genji Tale, and we were on our way back to the hotel. Dinner plans were hatched and Dani, Karen and I walked through Kyoto Station until we found somewhere interesting looking to try for dinner. We are some tasty skewers and Okonomiyaki while listening to some Australian businessmen and some Argentinian soccer fans. It turns out that white folk can tend to be kind of noisy.

It was back to the hotel to start packing up because we have to leave here tomorrow. It will be time to make our way to our destination wedding venue and start the preparations for the 25th. All of this after our day in Miyajima tomorrow as well. Wish us luck!