Kyoto and Nara

Today's main mission was to visit the nearby city of Nara, but as our last full day based at Kyoto, we had a couple of other things to fit in too.

First on the list- on the way to Nara we hopped off the train to visit the Inari-Taisha Shrine. this one is famous for its huge collection of Torii gates lining pathways up the mountain. 

There are somewhere in the region of 10000 gates in total, and it climbs to quite some height!

Torii gates represent the gateway between the mortal realm and the world of the gods. These were each gifted to the shrine by different families. I think the experience is somewhere between a forest art trail, and a prayer or meditation walk. I suspect, as you might get with a Cathedral in the UK, that many people there are interested in marvelling at the design and structure, or are there for an interesting trip out. They might light a candle or say a prayer. Others might regularly attend services, or hold deep religious convictions. Wherever people stand, it's clearly an important and respected part of life to visit these places in Japan.

We saw two men going down with empty frame rucksacks as we were heading up the hill. Later, as we were going back down, we saw them again, trudging up with bags laden with drinks and wares for the gift shops and refreshment shops. It didn't occur to me until that point that there wasn't any other way for those goods to get up the hill! What an exhausting job! 

There were piles of mini gates that people had written their own dedications on, and added to the shrine. You can see there was a dusting of snow at the top of this one.

After an hour or two, we hopped back on the train and continued to Nara.

Another place known for its friendly deer!

The antlers appear to have been removed, presumably for the safety of humans!

Some of them hung about in large numbers. They were spread across quite a wide area, this was just a few of the overall deer count.

There were streets full of people. This street was lined with market stalls selling various tasty treats.

The young deer at the back was especially cute.

You can't really get the scale of this from the photo, but this temple, Todai-Ji, which is made of wood, is really huge!

As is the buddha within! It's really quite an astounding construction- something that you can't really get the feel of in a photo.

One of the posts holding the ceiling up has a hole at the base. Tradition says that children who can get through will be blessed (I can't remember if it was a specific blessing, ie wealth, or just general!). We saw a couple of slender women fit through the hole too- and we saw two less slender men size themselves up, but not get very far!

Back outside we decided to join the multitudes, and bought a pack of deer 'cookies'. Surprisingly, we actually found a hungry deer or two!

Along the pathways leading up to another temple, we found some interesting shiny art installations.

And many many stone lanterns!

On the way back from the lanterns we bought another pack of deer cookies, as it had been such fun feeding them- but we made the mistake of taking the busy road back to the station, and all the deer there were lying down, turning their heads away from the repeated advances of cookie-brandishing tourists. A hard life!!

And so, back on the train with a pocket full of deer food, we headed back into Kyoto, and out the other side to the famed bamboo grove. 

I was ready to be dissapointed with the not-as-dense-as-advertised bamboo forest at first, but it did get better as we walked in!

And we also chanced upon a surprise 'kimono forest' at a nearby station to the grove.

After all that walking, we settled to enjoy some food near Kyoto station, before a final walk back to our accomodation. We ate Tonkatsu, basically fired chicken with cabbage and rice and dipping sauce and soup.

On the walk back through town we saw some people setting up to do some filming- a movie called 'The Sword' apparently. There was a cluster of men dressed in traditional outfits being given checked over by wardrobe before being let loose. We didn't wait to see anything though- by all accounts, in filming it takes hours to do very little, and its very cold here!!