Monday, June 12, 2017

Day 14 - Kyoto

The Torii tunnel at Fushimi Inari Taisha was just as I had imagined it to be but much longer.  We only hiked up to the mid loop and decided to turn around as we had a full day of activities ahead.  Richard was extremely happy to see his given name (納) written on every Torii gate!

The path leading to the Todaiji Temple in Nara was full of deers and these creatures were trained to sniff food from tourists.  They would bow their head and expect a reward.  At such a time, tourists would feed them a waffle cracker.  Sometime, they may get frustrated for not getting the goodies and snatch whatever is in the trust's hands, including maps and eat it.  They would fight with you if you try to stop them from chewing the paper. 

The Todaiji Temple houses the Great Buddha and it is considered as one of their treasures in Japan.  It was initially built in the Mara (710-794 AD) but had been rebuilt a number of times due to fire and other natural disasters.  The current structure is 1/3 smaller than the original.

We visited the Bamboo Path near Arashiyama in the late afternoon but it was a disappointment as the area was not as scenic nor as peaceful as we expected. We left shortly after and took the Shinkansen back to Osaka (the journey only takes 12 mins) just to buy the cheese cake that was so yummy that we had to try it for the last time.  The cake was freshly baked and we literally devoured the entire cake in a matter of minutes before looking for a place for dinner.  We finally settled for a restaurant that specialized on cold soba noodles.  It was really good.

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