Wednesday May 27

Today we went to Nara which is outside of Kyoto. It is a complex of temples and shrines that many people visit. The interesting thing about this area is that there are about 1200 deer that just graze around the park and get fed by people. They are considered sacred to the area and at one point if you killed one you would be sentenced to death. The first temple we went to was called Daibutsu-den. Basically the site has one of the largest wooden structures in the world and the largest brass Buddha in Japan. When I walked into the complex my mouth dropped. The temple is massive and is surrounded by a large lawn divided by a pathway. I walked into the temple and saw the giant Buddha. It was amazing and probably one of my favorite sights I have seen on the trip. The Buddha, when it was first constructed almost bankrupt the country and later in its history its head fell off. The current Buddha sits on a lotus flower and is surrounded by smaller statues.
The other temple we went to was called Todai-ji and had thousands of stone and paper lanterns in and around the temple. At two times of the year all of the lanterns are lit. The temple had a tree that was really old, I think close to 1000 years old. There were many lanterns hung around the temple and through the hallways.
We had dinner at a restaurant where we got our own private room and sat on tatami mats. It was kind of like a tapas place but was pretty good. We did get a table charge in our bill that we didn’t know about. We knew that there is no tipping in Japan but we were not aware that some places had table charges.
That night we went to a four story tall arcade and played all different types of games. I tried playing a game like guitar hero but it only had three buttons. It was really difficult but I saw some people playing it perfectly. I also played a Rambo game that was pretty fun. The place also had slot machines and other video game betting but we didn’t play those things.