Mie and Nara

Trip Start Apr 20, 2004

Trip End Aug 28, 2005

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Flag of Japan Nara, Japan
Tuesday, November 23, 2004

This trip to Nara was prompted by our Japanese Teacher Izumi who organised a day bus trip to Mie for us to see the Akame shijyuhachi taki (48 waterfalls) and the Ninja Museum of the Iga Sect. From there Dan, myself and our kiwi mates Grant and Tracy caught a train into Nara. It was a pretty early start to the long weekend when the bus lead by Izumi-sensei with 20ish genki giajin in toe head off for our day trip to Isse. The first stop was the Akame 48 Waterfalls. A great oppertunity to get out of the pollutions and madness of the city and amongst the Japanese nature.... or so we thought. What a dagg! We arrived to see a carpark full of tourist busses and cars, people everywhere, shops selling omiyage (food delicies of the area that you buy for your family and workmates who could not come on the trip!)and souviners and finally the ticket booth! Yes - a ticket booth, we had to buy a ticket to go on the nature trail to see the waterfalls! The narrow tracks had people winding all along the 4km stretch to the top waterfall all walking so slow and very reminicent of a trail of NZ sheep

ACMY???

. The surprises didnt stop here! Also on the nature walk they had vending machienes selling Coke, beer and smokes and if that wasnt enough there was 2 small restaurants along the way too with beer tents, meat on sticks, ice-creams etc. Nothing like that on a walk with nature in NZ! The waterfalls themselves were ok, nothing too spectacular however this didnt stop the hawds of Japanese with their tripods and massive lens shooting nature shots.
After we had all jumped back on the bus, re-couped after the madness of the nature walk, it was off to the Ninja Museum. This place was pretty interesting. We watched a ninja show and were taken through the museum and a ninja house with all the ninja hiding places and tricks in it. The ninja display was cool - 2 young modern ninjas fighting with numchucks, ninja stars, knives and swords. Dan had a go at throwing the ninja stars - too tall and less than perfect aim, I think he will have to stick to teaching english! Unfortunatly our time browsing the museum was a little short as we had to get back on the bus for everyone to head back to Gifu and Dan, Tracy, Grant and I to be dropped off at the Train station to set off on our next let of adventure for the weekend.

First stop in Nara after dropping our bags off at the hotel was Okonomiyaki for dinner. Nara being part of the Kansai region is famous for Okonomiyaki Kansai style

Autumn leaves

. Lucky it lived up to its hype. From there it was out to check out the local nightlife starting with...........karaoke of corse! Possibly the best karaoke we have been to in Japan - loads of english songs, Nomihoudai (all you can drink deal)with an impressive selection of coloured boozy drinks in every colour of the rainbow and colour in between! Impossible to sleep after this, we hunted down an English pub for a nightcap and spot of darts. Im not much of a darts player but Tracy and I couldnt resist the urge to try and beat the guys. Accuracy was not that flash after 2 hours of karaoke but we somehow both managed to pull off a bullseye when it counted! Likely to be the only bullseye I will ever throw!

Nara was the first real capital of Japan from 710 to 784 and now it is a popular small town tourist destination. Like Takayama and Kyoto, Nara still displays its old Japan charm - a cultural gem. One of the best points about Nara is that you can walk almost everywhere and see the major sites in a full days sightseeing. The most sensible route to take was the Nara-koen route which encompases many of the temples and shrines we wanted to see. A unique thing about Nara is the thousands of deer in the park and wandering the streets. Apparently the deer are considered messenges of god and have National Treasure status! Pretty cheeky things - hanging round the deer food carts where you can buy a bag of deer feed in hope that they will be first in line to be fed. We even saw a deer waiting at a pedisterian crossing with people waiting to cross, he waited, waited and when the little green man poped up, off he wandered across the road amongst the people! Well practiced at crossing roads I guess - he definatly knew the drill! What a dagg!
The most impressive of the sights in Nara for me was the Todai-ji Temple. The Daibutsu-den Hall which houses a massive 17m tall buddha made of bronze and gold, is acutally the largest wooden building in the World! It was built in 1709 - amazing how they had the technology to build such a monstrosty and apparently the original Hall was a third bigger again!
It was a full day spent wandering the Nara Koen (park) visiting the trail of temples and shrines, eating curry rice and watching the deer.
This is probably my top pick of the day trips we have had.