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The next day, well… we hardly woke up early as we ended up getting wasted last night lol. But as soon as we were up we caught a 45 minute train to Nara.
Nara enjoyed a 74 year spell as Japans first capital and the city became a grand diocese of Buddhism and miraculously many building have survived since being built in 710 and remain as some of the oldest wooden buildings in the world.
First we headed to Kofuku-ji temple, it was founded in 669 but only a precious few remain of the original 175 buildings and holds Japans foremost collection of Buddhist art.
Deers 'messengers of god' roam freely in Nara just like on Miyajima island, but I'm not talking one or two, I'm talking hundreds, just walking about, running across roads all over the place, we even saw a heard of deer just run down the road right past us haha was hilarious and they are so friendly so I hugged a few and got some pictures.
Next we headed to Todai-ji temple; it consists of a vast Buddha hall, sub temples, halls, pagodas and gates of exceptional historical and architectural interest. The construction completed in 752, was ordered to house Nara's great Buddha image but also to consolidate its position as the city at the centre of Buddhism, the statue inside is massive around 16m tall !! and is made from hundreds of tons of molten bronze and mercury and is the largest bronze image/sculpture of Buddha in the world.
After that we called it a day in Nara and slowly walked back through the city to the train station.
Once back in Kyoto again quite late we had a walk round finally to get our bearings ready for the next day, we ended up going to a Manga museum that Johnny wanted to go to then on our way back to the hotel we found a great place to eat, you pick your noodles, move down, pick your tempura, move down and pick anything else you might want and then pay it was great value aswell.
We decided not to go back to the hotel and stay out for a bit longer, after a very long walk we had reached Pontoncho Alley, this is where the Geisha entertain clients in traditional Ochaya or tea house. Although we did not see a Geisha we saw a Maiko, and apprentice Geisha walking down the alley which was really cool.
We went for a drink at a really nice restaurant on the river the next road on from pontoncho alley, after that we headed into Gion, Gion is said to be a symbol to Japanese males of all that's good in life, wine, women and karaoke! Haha.
Gion was great to walk about and is still one of the quarters for Geisha in the city.
After this we walked home through the city to the expense of our feet but was really good fun, on the way home we went to an arcade to play some Japanese kids on tekken and virtual tennis, was hilarious, obviously we didn't win.
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