Deer biscuits are for deers

Day 16

Last night we moved to the second hostel, just across the street. We now have a small room (8 tatami) with nothing else inside, very spartan! Shared washing and toilet facilities, as usual very clean. It will do.

Breakfast at Kyoto train station. I found the best coffee so far at Veloce Caffe!

We took the JR Nara Line and stoped at Inari to see Fushimi Inari Shrine, the temple of the thousand Toriis, an iconic atraction in southern Kyoto. I knew it had a lot of gates (torii) but I wasn't expecting to have to walk this much!

It took us about 1.5h to do the round trip, up to the top one way and down the other. The toriis are donated by private individuals as a wish of some kind and their name and date of donation is inscribed in it. Some look really old with the base cracking, others seem quite new.

There are small shrines on the way with shops/restaurants convinientely placed in front of them that sell boxes of offerings (packets of food, fruit, beer). We saw a woman leaving one of this in one of these shrines and she was carefull enough to open the shochu (?) bottle least the god would be upset to have to do it himself.

Some cemeteries here and there as all. As it was Sunday, we also saw families praying at their ancestor's grave, lighting candles and leaving offerings.

Back to the same train but this time we went all the way to the end of the line: Nara.

We arrived at lunchtime and both me and Jorge are starting to tire of japanese food all the time. I know, I'm a traitor! Manuel has made a point to tell me that! We found a café that does pasta and indulged in a bit of italian (carbonara and pesto japanese way). Pasta was al dente!

Plenty of shops in the main street. One of them made and sell mochi, japanese rice cakes. They are very popular and can be simple, with a filling of bean paste or died with bean paste or green tea. They are sold as an individual ball or in a stick of 3 small balls of different colours. They are gooey and sticky and awful. One was enough for all of us to try!

Nara has a complex of several temples over a huge area that also includes a park. Again, deers are the main atraction.

In Nara there are special biscuits that you can buy to feed the deers. Each pack costs ¥150 and you can see people holding several. It is the standard  to have a picture taken feeding a deer. Considering the amount of biscuits they eat, I would be surprised if they ate anything else!

Obviously we bought a pack and I was almost thrown to the ground by a very assertive deer. Me and Jorge also decided to try the biscuits. A bit was enough to find out that they are dry and taste like weetabix. Argh!

Kofuku Temple has two pagodas and the five-storied pagoda is the second highest pagoda in Japan.

Todai Temple houses the biggest bronze statue of a Budha, which is housed in Japan's biggest wooden structure. Funny enough it's width is actually 33% smaller than the original version which has burned down.

To have an idea of how big the Budha is, check out these numbers:

Height of the body - 14.98m

Length of eye - 1.02m

Length of ear - 2.54m

Interesting thing in Japan is that regardless of where you go and what you see (castle, palace, temple, shrine), it will inevitably have been burned to the ground at least once in it's history. That's what happens when you build in wood!

As we were visiting the Great Budha I felt my tummy complaining. I had to ran to the toilet. Inconveniently, there are no toilets in the temple so I had to zig-zag amongst the tourists only to reach the toilet in despair and find out there were around 10 asian toilets and only 2 western toilets. No way! I can't do this on an asian toilet!!! 

I am in a good position to confirm that the deer biscuits are indeed made of a strong and fast acting weetabix-type mix. I would advise anyone to stick to the  package instructions and keep the deer biscuits to the deer.

On the way back to our accommodation we decided to try a local noodle restaurant. It is small with even smaller tables. So small I had to eat sideways on the corner of the table or Jorge couldn't lean on his noodle bowl. It had a very comprehensive english menu. So good I decided to take a picture in case we need it in future. 

Soba noodles were made with green tea hence their green colour. At first you can't tell it's different but then you realise there is a different taste, which is difficult to explain. Come to Kyoto and try!

Jorge had a local speciality: Nishin Soba, which is made with preserved herring.

As usual the food was excelent and, as usual, you can tell you are in a noodle restaurant. Everyone slurps the noodles. It's not rude, it's the standard. I try to do the same but I am afraid I can't match so many years of experience.

Night time opening at To Temple for the cherry blossom season. It is close to our accomodation so we popped in for some night photography. It was worth it!