Osaka, March 6
Door: Yaru
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Yaru
06 Maart 2020 | Japan, Osaka
11:53PM JST - “Just outside of Osaka, let’s explore Nara!”
Alright I promised more on the Bowing and Animals today! We woke up a bit later than usual and decided to take it easy, had some breakfast, went back to our room and only left around 10:30. With the train to Nara! Nara is about 40 minutes away but a beautiful place to visit. I strongly recommend going there as it’s easy to acces and very pretty and fun to explore.
Nara has its famous Deer park! Which is a big and beautiful Park where a lot of wild deer walk around! These deers are super used to humans as Nara park contains many beautiful shrines, temples and gardens to visit thus is filled with tourists year round~ Although we left later on the day Nara still was very peaceful and not crowded at all! When you enter the park you’ll immediately stumble upon your first deer encounter. There a small vendors here and there who sell special deer crackers so you can safely feed them. Now these deers are special as they learned Japanese manners, as you can guess, the deers will bow for you as they know this gesture will guarantee them a delicious treat! It’s so cute to see and experience :D They’ll come flocking to you once they see you have the crackers and will even follow you around even though you aren’t going to give them more. And because these deer are not contained or whatsoever they roam the city freely and you can even stumble upon them in a quieter part of the city. They won’t disturb the traffic as that is too loud for them to even want to approach.
The weather was truly nice once again and Jo-Anne and I ate 2 ice creams XD They were really delicious and well needed. Though when we sat down and had almost finished eating with only the cone left a deer came and ‘attacked’ us! It furiously bobbed his head up and down as to imitate a bow because it wanted the ice cream cone. It came really close and kept reaching towards our hands which we now held high in the air XD it was really funny and harmless, some deers still need to learn some more Japanese manners...
Nara deer park also has many beautiful temples and shrines. The most famous temple being Todaiji temple. We walked through a big gate towards the entrance of the temple even here deer roamed around, there were so many. We bought a ticket to see the inside as well, the Buddha Hall. The temple was massive!! It looked beautiful as the sun illuminated it~ I always forget that the insides of a lot of these big temples will have a huge Buddha statue right in the middle of the hall and then you look up and get freaked out because you didn’t expect there to be a humongous body sitting there XD anyway the statue was surrounded by 7 more smaller buddhas and Lotus flower arrangements also made out of stone. It was cool to see!
Because the weather was so nice we also decided to climb a little bit up the mountain which was located North in the park. Great idea because we got to enter Hokkedo temple where you were allowed to stand on it’s second floor, the temple was already build high and on the balcony you got this really amazing view of the city! You could even see the mountains on the horizon, that was spectacular, with no cloud to be seen the weather was really in our favour today! We went up even more a saw a few more little shrines. :)
After that we descended the mountain and went on our way to Isuen garden. It was around 3:45PM by then and we saw online that the garden would close at 4:30PM. So we quickly made our way to it, bought a ticket and entered. We weren’t sure if we should buy a ticket at first considering the time but I’m really happy we did. The garden was incredibly beautiful. We were about the only ones there and it was so quiet and peaceful. Tranquility is the right word to describe it. There were a few traditional tea houses here and there and it all just looked very Zen. I would’ve given a million dollars just to live there. Another good choice :D
Next to Isuen garden was Yoshikien garden! We were done around 4:20PM and Yoshikien was open until 5:00PM, we really did catch everything last minute, but considering the good experience at Isuen we thought we might as well visit this garden. Tadaa~ We got a pleasant surprise at the entrance as the fee for Yoshikien garden was free for foreign tourists if they presented their ID, which of course we carried with us! Score! This garden was split into 3 areas. The Pond, Moss and Flower garden. Unfortunately the Flowers weren’t blooming yet, as to be expected and the moss garden was nice and open but maybe a little bit underwhelming compared to Isuen. Though the Pond garden was equally as gorgeous. There was a high point you could walk up to and take a seat which had view over the pond garden. The sun was slowly descending and it was a beautiful view from there! A good nice break from the bustling streets~
We weren’t done with visiting nice places as we had seen another temple when we were on our way to the deer park and had decided to visit that after. Ot was Kofuku-ji temple which was surrounded by complimentary buildings. A big shrine of it’s left and a smaller one on it’s right and a big beautiful 5-story high Pagoda. A sight to see :) So now that we were finished sight seeing all these historical landmarks it was time to explore Nara’s city and dinner offers which turned out to be not as much as we expected. Still we found a really good Tonkatsu restaurant where we got a delicious meal! We both had Torikatsu (fried chicken) with rice and sweet curry and a fresh salad. I love Torikatsu and it filled our stomachs well!
It was a long eventful day today but because of the cute deer and peaceful gardens we aren’t super tired (considering I’m writing this at nearly 1AM). Don’t worry I can afford it since tomorrow we’ll take it easy as well. We’ll be traveling to Kyoto where we spent the first 2 nights in a capsule hotel! I can’t wait to share the experience XD From what i have seen from the photos it looks really futuristic~ It’s the ‘Nine Hours’ hotel in Kyoto and you can look it up if you want a sneak-peek.
I will sleep now! Byebye~
こんにちは
Kon-ni-chi-wa!
~ Hello!
~ Yaru
Alright I promised more on the Bowing and Animals today! We woke up a bit later than usual and decided to take it easy, had some breakfast, went back to our room and only left around 10:30. With the train to Nara! Nara is about 40 minutes away but a beautiful place to visit. I strongly recommend going there as it’s easy to acces and very pretty and fun to explore.
Nara has its famous Deer park! Which is a big and beautiful Park where a lot of wild deer walk around! These deers are super used to humans as Nara park contains many beautiful shrines, temples and gardens to visit thus is filled with tourists year round~ Although we left later on the day Nara still was very peaceful and not crowded at all! When you enter the park you’ll immediately stumble upon your first deer encounter. There a small vendors here and there who sell special deer crackers so you can safely feed them. Now these deers are special as they learned Japanese manners, as you can guess, the deers will bow for you as they know this gesture will guarantee them a delicious treat! It’s so cute to see and experience :D They’ll come flocking to you once they see you have the crackers and will even follow you around even though you aren’t going to give them more. And because these deer are not contained or whatsoever they roam the city freely and you can even stumble upon them in a quieter part of the city. They won’t disturb the traffic as that is too loud for them to even want to approach.
The weather was truly nice once again and Jo-Anne and I ate 2 ice creams XD They were really delicious and well needed. Though when we sat down and had almost finished eating with only the cone left a deer came and ‘attacked’ us! It furiously bobbed his head up and down as to imitate a bow because it wanted the ice cream cone. It came really close and kept reaching towards our hands which we now held high in the air XD it was really funny and harmless, some deers still need to learn some more Japanese manners...
Nara deer park also has many beautiful temples and shrines. The most famous temple being Todaiji temple. We walked through a big gate towards the entrance of the temple even here deer roamed around, there were so many. We bought a ticket to see the inside as well, the Buddha Hall. The temple was massive!! It looked beautiful as the sun illuminated it~ I always forget that the insides of a lot of these big temples will have a huge Buddha statue right in the middle of the hall and then you look up and get freaked out because you didn’t expect there to be a humongous body sitting there XD anyway the statue was surrounded by 7 more smaller buddhas and Lotus flower arrangements also made out of stone. It was cool to see!
Because the weather was so nice we also decided to climb a little bit up the mountain which was located North in the park. Great idea because we got to enter Hokkedo temple where you were allowed to stand on it’s second floor, the temple was already build high and on the balcony you got this really amazing view of the city! You could even see the mountains on the horizon, that was spectacular, with no cloud to be seen the weather was really in our favour today! We went up even more a saw a few more little shrines. :)
After that we descended the mountain and went on our way to Isuen garden. It was around 3:45PM by then and we saw online that the garden would close at 4:30PM. So we quickly made our way to it, bought a ticket and entered. We weren’t sure if we should buy a ticket at first considering the time but I’m really happy we did. The garden was incredibly beautiful. We were about the only ones there and it was so quiet and peaceful. Tranquility is the right word to describe it. There were a few traditional tea houses here and there and it all just looked very Zen. I would’ve given a million dollars just to live there. Another good choice :D
Next to Isuen garden was Yoshikien garden! We were done around 4:20PM and Yoshikien was open until 5:00PM, we really did catch everything last minute, but considering the good experience at Isuen we thought we might as well visit this garden. Tadaa~ We got a pleasant surprise at the entrance as the fee for Yoshikien garden was free for foreign tourists if they presented their ID, which of course we carried with us! Score! This garden was split into 3 areas. The Pond, Moss and Flower garden. Unfortunately the Flowers weren’t blooming yet, as to be expected and the moss garden was nice and open but maybe a little bit underwhelming compared to Isuen. Though the Pond garden was equally as gorgeous. There was a high point you could walk up to and take a seat which had view over the pond garden. The sun was slowly descending and it was a beautiful view from there! A good nice break from the bustling streets~
We weren’t done with visiting nice places as we had seen another temple when we were on our way to the deer park and had decided to visit that after. Ot was Kofuku-ji temple which was surrounded by complimentary buildings. A big shrine of it’s left and a smaller one on it’s right and a big beautiful 5-story high Pagoda. A sight to see :) So now that we were finished sight seeing all these historical landmarks it was time to explore Nara’s city and dinner offers which turned out to be not as much as we expected. Still we found a really good Tonkatsu restaurant where we got a delicious meal! We both had Torikatsu (fried chicken) with rice and sweet curry and a fresh salad. I love Torikatsu and it filled our stomachs well!
It was a long eventful day today but because of the cute deer and peaceful gardens we aren’t super tired (considering I’m writing this at nearly 1AM). Don’t worry I can afford it since tomorrow we’ll take it easy as well. We’ll be traveling to Kyoto where we spent the first 2 nights in a capsule hotel! I can’t wait to share the experience XD From what i have seen from the photos it looks really futuristic~ It’s the ‘Nine Hours’ hotel in Kyoto and you can look it up if you want a sneak-peek.
I will sleep now! Byebye~
こんにちは
Kon-ni-chi-wa!
~ Hello!
~ Yaru
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