...previous post on Japan...
Day 5 // 24 Nov 17 // Nara
/ Nara park
/ Todaiji
/ 水谷茶屋 (teahouse serving sweets)
Saying goodbye to Monzy at the train station. All of us checked in and out on the same day, what a coincidence. We lug around our luggage to Nara while Monzy to Tokyo.
Bought some food at Family Mart at some interchange for breakfast because we were starving and needed the energy, mostly for the luggage. Got myself a "meron bang"! aka melon bread. A must have for the main char of an anime. Contrary to the name, it does not have any melon filling or even taste. It's just a bun covered with a layer of sweet crisp cookie dough. I think usually I would refer it to as "polo bun" instead like the Hongkies. However, there is also a melon filling bread, placed just beside to melon bread. Tried that too, if you like melon then you'll definitely like it!
I was at Sunway Medical in Subang not long ago, there is also a Family Mart there. You know what? They also sell melon breads there so, no need to go all the way to Japan to try these anymore. Hahaha.
We arrived at Nara quite late, like around 10am. So, naturally, all the luggage lockers in the stations are occupied. I foresee this happening, so I was prepared. We found a place to safely stow our luggage thank you for this informative post about luggage storage in Nara.
Since we arrived at Kintetsu Nara Station, naturally, we went to the tourist information centre. As you can see, it cost us 800 yen per baggage and 500yen for smaller bags. Unfortunately the only downside to this is that the place closes at 6.30pm, so we had to come back to retrieve our stuff before they close. If you are using lockers, then you can put there as long as you want.
We were going to Osaka anyway, that is why I figured it's better to go from Kyoto > Nara > Osaka. But stupid me, I forgot my specs and left it at our Kyoto Airbnb. I only thought about that in the evening. In the end, we had to check in at our Osaka Airbnb, then me and my brother had to go back to Kyoto in the evening just to retrieve my specs. Luckily the Kyoto host was really nice, I texted the host to inform him about my specs, they found it and helped to put it in a plastic bag and put it in the mailbox for my convenience.
Figured we would take an early lunch first before starting our tour around Nara. There's quite a few Chinese restaurants there. We wanted to try something new so we decided on the Omurice. This was just a random restaurant we came across. Nothing special, and food are just mediocre.
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| Curry rice and omurice. |
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| Fresh green tea?? in a pot. Suprising. |
And now, it's time to feed the deers. We jumped when we saw this small stall selling deer biscuits. You know what? These stalls are just everywhere in Nara, you do not need to go find them because they will just pop up everywhere because there's deers everywhere. We had a lot of fun even though it's just feeding deers (and a lot of bowing going on). Some of the deers are very very cheeky. One even pull my coat and demanded to be fed! I've got video evidence in my vlog.
Curiosity got the best of me, so I tried some deer biscuit. I was expecting it to be sweet because it looks like those sweet biscuits/cookies but it turns out to be extremely bitter. I am not sure what these are made of.
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| Some are also very chill. |
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| They are literally everywhere. |
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| Rejected. |
Tried out this extremely premium-looking cremia ice cream. Which can be seen sold in a lot of places. I think we saw it quite a few times while we were exploring Japan and they are sold in random stalls. It's more expensive than the normal ones and it does taste a lot more "premium".
I think I bought a lot of stuff in Nara. I got my "oppai" stress ball and my Hanya mask wall deco here. The Hanya mask ain't cheap but I was really entranced by it, so I had to buy it. I forgot to take a picture though. Will do that and post it in my "Things to buy" post after I am done with all my Japan trip entries. If you are really curious then check out this Youtube video, it looks exactly like this. I think it's from the same supplier. I would prefer a Kitsune mask but couldn't find one that I could hang on the wall.
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| Nandaimon Gate |
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| blur look at Nandaimon Gate LOL |
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| Also, this curious little island with a Torii gate in the middle of the lake. Can't help but just imagine some goddess would teleport there via the Torii gate, omg it's so cool, fangirling, brb |
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| Todaiji temple |
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| The Great Buddha. It's gigantic! |
Also, cannot miss this big wooden statue just outside Todaiji. This is Binzuru statue. According to the legend, he has great healing power and so is his statue. There was a saying (actually, it's written on some plate next to this statue), if you have an illness on your body part, e.g. bunion (in my case), you may rub the statue's foot and then rub on your own foot to fasten the healing process.
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| Lone deer sunbathing |
We stumbled across a really creepy part of Nara and passed by some abandoned buildings. It reminded us a lot about Fatal Frame. And if you look carefully on the roof, you may see a peculiar thing...... Just kidding, it's not a kid on the roof, it's just some wood that looked like a child squatting there. On my first glance, I was thoroughly freaked out and I showed it to my brother as well. He was also creeped out. Made you look didn't I? Heh heh heh heh heh...
This sweet shop is sooooo on my to-go list after I saw an online picture of it. It's so cute! Not only does this place looks super adorable, they also serve really good Japanese sweets and snacks. The place closes at 4.30pm so be sure to go there early!
Was craving for amazake but unfortunately they don't have it when we went there. So I opted for the molasses and soybean drink. Also ordered two type of snacks to try out. My family didn't like it very much but I thought they were really good.
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| Bought this bunion cushion in some random Japanese pharmacy |
That was it for our Nara day trip. We didn't explore a lot because we had to collect our luggage by 6.30pm and not only that, my bunion was hurting me too much. My sneakers were not made for cold weathers. And so is my foot. Hahaha.
That's all for my Nara post. I know, not much. But hey, feeding deers was a lot of fun! Hahaha.
// Bonus Vlog //
Please watch in HD!
***Day 5 Vlog***
***
...more post on Japan...
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