Thursday, January 19, 2024

• Hotel provided a complementary buffet breakfast, which we thoroughly enjoyed tasting all of.

• We took the bus to Todal-ji template in Nara Park, and had the approach walk mostly to ourselves, other than a couple of cars and what sounded like an elementary school band practice.

• We finally got to see the Nara Daibutsu (Giant Buddha) – it was really hard to judge the scale compared with the Kamakura Daibutsu, as it was entirely enclosed in a temple which played with our perspectives. Safe to say – very large!

• Fun fact – at some point on the trip, I’d bought what I thought was a UV filter for my telephoto lens (for extra protection), but had accidentally picked up some sort of mist filter or glitter glass, which can be seen in some of the photos above. I was half convinced I’d gotten condensation on an internal lens element for a while, as a lot of photos were looking blurry – yay inexperience!
• Getting to the temple also revealed all of the tourists, and our peaceful walk quickly became a much more crowded one.
• We walked back another way through Nara park, seeing many deer (also, one dog, and a pair of deer bullying some poor girl who had crackers but didn’t know what to do around the deer. The stalemate was ended by a third deer, who sneak-attacked the lady from behind. They managed to secure her crackers).

• Stopped for lunch at a specialty tempura soba place.

• We stopped at a grocery store on our way back to the hotel for some snacks, including a little stall by the entrance selling crazy cheap coal-roasted yams.

• Went back to unwind at the hotel’s public onsen again, and ended up having it all to myself for a little over an hour.
• Followed by a mid-afternoon nap.
• Found a local izakaya for dinner, the karaage was especially nice.
• Also, experimented with something called a “Styler” in the room – a little closet that seemed to do something about refreshing and removing creases from our coats? Took a few attempts to make it go, but seemed to help?

• Finally, early night.