Good morning.
We're here in Kyoto.
We're going to be taking a short day trip to the ancient city of Nara.
It's just a short little ride there.
If you're in Kyoto, I highly recommend working a day trip to Nara into your itinerary.
Rapid trains operate every 30 minutes between Kyoto Station and JR Nara Station.
The trip takes about 45 minutes from Kyoto and is covered by the Japan Rail Pass.
We just arrived here in Nara.
We're gonna make our way to Todaiji temple.
Nara was Japan's first permanent Capitol, established in the year 710.
We're headed to Todaiji, which is one of Japan's most important temples.
Todaiji can be reached by bus from the train station, but if you're physically able, walk
through the historic city streets and beautiful parks to get there.
It takes about 45 minutes from the JR Nara Station.
You're bound to run into some of Nara's nearly 1,200 deer that freely roam the areas in and
around Nara Park.
Considered in Shinto to be messengers of the gods, the deer of Nara have become a symbol
of the city and have even been designated as a natural treasure.
Generally speaking, Nara's deer are surprisingly tame.
Deer crackers are for sale around the park.
But beware the deer that can become aggressive if they think you have food.
They'll bite pockets, backpacks, or whatever, and will go completely savage on you if you're
not careful.
He's getting swarmed by "deers."
How about those deers?
That was awesome.
They're cool, huh?
Yeah, I love deers.
Some deer have even learned how to bow in true Japanese fashion to visitors.
Deer crackers are required to motivate others.
No luck on this "deers."
This is Nara's official mascot, Sento-Kun, who's a fairly creepy half-deer child of some
kind.
Nara park, and really the entire approach to Todaiji, is typical Japanese beautiful.
Look at all these "deers"!
The deer population becomes even more concentrated around Todaiji.
Okay, we're about to get a clean shot if . . . if . . . Awwww, come on!
These are replicas of the actual Buddha hands that are in the temple.
So when we go in there, in the actual temple, you'll get an idea of how ginormous that bronze
Buddha is in there.
They're buddies right here.
This is the largest wooden building in the world.
And it's only two thirds of what it was originally, before it was rebuilt.
And it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this whole building, this huge building,
is made entirely out of wood.
The temple was constructed in 752 as the head temple of all provincial Buddhist temples
of Japan, and the Capitol eventually was moved away from Nara to diminish the temple's influence
on government affairs.
The Daibutsu is flanked on either side by massive wooden statues of two Guardian Kings.
Don't mess around with Tamonten.
Komokuten is a bad-A. The Daibutsu statue itself is one of the largest bronze figures
in the world, originally cast in 746.
The present statue consists of 437 tons of bronze and 130 kilograms of gold.
Beside the Tamonten statue, you'll see a wooden column with a hole through its base.
The hole is said to be the exactly same size as one of the great Buddha's nostrils.
Popular belief is that those who can squeeze through the hole are assured enlightenment.
You've got some really worthy kind of wishes here.
You know, long life.
But then Libby over here . . . Don't bash on Libby.
Libby needs to read a corporate productivity book, not come to Todaiji.
Libby, you can wish for whatever you want.
The old man was just grouchy this day.
We just finished here at Todaiji temple.
It was awesome.
We're gonna go check out some of the town, and then we'll probably head back to Kyoto,
but this was super fun to come to this temple.
For us, the walk back from Todaiji was ever more charming than the walk there.
On the way out, and after wet wiping our hands from the deers, we got three of these strawberries,
and they have condensed milk inside of them.
They're frozen.
So basically like a strawberry infused with ice cream almost.
It's pretty unbelievable.
There's plenty of delicious street food and restaurants throughout the area.
And there was mochi.
Delicious grilled mochi in sweet teriyaki glaze.
Hai, arigato gozaimasu.
Mochi part twelve.
If you walk another thousand feet in Nara, you'll come across another thousand year old
national treasure.
Nara is a giant showcase of Japan's cultural legacy and is just plain beautiful.
Speaking of national treasures, Nara is also home to Nakatanidou, a famous mochi shop.
Mochi is a Japanese rice cake, made of short-grain sweet rice.
The rice is cooked and pounded into paste, and then molded into small pieces.
If you haven't noticed, we love mochi in this family.
There are machines that make mochi, but the OG way is to pound the cooked rice into a
paste with huge wooden mallets, in a ceremony called 'mochitsuki'.
Nakatanidou is said to have the fastest mochi pounders in Japan.
The freshly pounded mochi is shaped, powdered with kinako, which is a soy bean flour, and
sold on the spot.
And it is sooo good.
Hai.
We finished up our cool day trip over in Nara.
So now we're just gonna go back to our apartment and just chill for a bit.
But we didn't even make it back to Kyoto before the old man grouched out one last time.
Limes.
Times, Sam, Times.
Not limes.
24 hour Times.
It's limes!
There's no T. There's no cross thing for the T. That's like the top of a car.
And it's supposed to be times.
24 hour limes makes no sense.
We're . . . I'm not having this argument again.