Trip To Nara

At JCMU there was a group trip to the city of Nara, specifically two Buddhist temples, Hyoru-ji and Todai-ji temple. I was super excited for this because I knew that I was going to see Japanese history in person! I love history especially Japanese history with hints of Korean and Chinese. You know they all are connected in some way... Either way I was totally ready for this trip even though we had to wake up earlier than our class starts!

Our schedule consisted of going to Horyu-ji temple first and then we would make our way to Todai-ji temple and to the deer park. Although I not a fan of creatures that can carry ticks on them (I've had bad experiences with ticks during my younger years, that's a different story) I was still excited to go to Todai-ji temple.

Here is the first temple, Horyu-ji, this is one of the first things that you see when you first arrive. You first have to walk through gates and through something like the courtyard to get to the actual temple. When we arrived this is what we saw, and the group of older looking people definitely gave us a good stare down. It was annoying and funny at the same time, but hey! we came to see the temple just like you guys!

A little Info. about Horyu-ji:
Horyu-ji is the world's oldest surviving wooden structures, conveying images of Japan as it existed more than 1,300 years ago, during the Asuka Period (A.D. mid 6th-beginning 8th century). The story of Horyu-ji's founding can be found discovered on the back of the halo of the Yakushi Nyorai Buddha statue. According to the records, the emperor Yomei vowed to build a temple and an image of a Buddha as a form of prayer for his own recovery from illness- a vow he was never fated to fulfill, for he died shortly thereafter. The writings state how Empress Suiko and Crown Prince Shotoku fulfilled Emperor Yomei's deathbed wish by building in 607 a temple and a statue of Buddha, to which  the temple was dedicated. - Horyu-ji brochure.

Horyuji is small compared to Todaiji, although it is the oldest Buddhist Temple in Japan and the world, the old feeling vibe didn't hit me. I studied all of the buildings and looked everything it had to offer, and yet that old feeling didn't hit me. I knew there was an abundance of history. Even without the feeling I still enjoyed the short amount of time we did spend here. Here are some of my favorite pictures.

On to Todaiji~!

The short drive to Todaiji  was fun by itself, but I really wanted to be off of the bus so I can go explore. My eagerness to see the history and the temple was no doubt bubbling inside of me, but I was slightly deterred by...

These creatures of nature...Deer. I don't have anything against deer, of course not I live in a state that has deer signs everywhere. Seeing them is fine, touching them is a totally different story. I refuse to touch them, and what made matters worse is that that were shedding their winter coat so they had chunks of hair missing, which made me even more disgusted. I avoided them while my classmates fawned, squeaked, squealed, petted, and sometimes run away as the deer followed them. Needless to say that I am not a fan of shedding creatures that carry ticks.


So my reaction to my classmates and the deer:

I am not liking these deer.

One thing I can say is while everyone was petting deer I bought a really nice decoration Katana. Instead of petting cute animals I decided to buy a weapon, haha! It can be made it into a real katana, but let's not even mention that. They gave me a certificate for customs to let them know it's not a real sword, I found that little funny but I knew it was needed. On to the temple!

This is what you would see as you approached the temple, it's similar to the entrance of Horyuji, but once you get inside it's totally different! It's mad crazy! I was so excited to see it that I practically ran to see the temple before the nice man/maybe monk gave me a brochure. I hope I didn't get bad karma for that. If you saw what I saw, and were just as excited as I was you would understand!

Look at that massive temple! I could smell and feel the old vibe of this temple. I was so amazed at this amazing building that I could hear my heart pounding in my ears drowning out the sound of the people around me.

Breathtaking.
Amazing.
Madly Awesome.

I'm not a history major, but this...I really like this. I don't even know how to explain it. Look at it.

As I came back to the world my friends and I approached the temple and were able to get a good look at the age of the building, the wood was splintering, gray, paint chips missing, moss growing around it. It sounds like it's in bad shape, but to me it was showing me how old it really was. Inside was even more amazing and showed me more history. The interesting part was the fact that there was a Buddhist monk praying when we were there, I've never seen a Buddhist monk actually praying, besides from Kung-fu movies.

The small man in the purple in front of the large Buddha statue.

Truthfully I would have liked to spend time just sitting inside of the temple, but since we were on a time limit we had to quickly see what we can see and return to the bus otherwise we would be left behind. So we quickly and causally weaved our way through the people and the temple. While there not only did a buy that mysterious looking katana, I bought a Japanese-esque doll, a ton of Omamori and absorbed the history.

Omamori are practically good luck charms...I think I bought at least six...ok seven.

I got a bit over board, but what happened the next day was totally worth it, but that's a different story.

Here are some of my favorite/cool pictures from Todaiji:

Ah, something definitely to remember:

My History feel~!