March 14th

The day of Gates and Lanterns

We awoke to another beautiful day. It was time to catch the train to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It is famous for its hiking trails and multitude of Torii gates. The shrine is dedicated to Inari, who is the Shinto god of rice, but takes care of business in general. All along the hiking trails are Torii gates, some 10,000 in total. What is unique about these gates is that they have been donated by a company or organization giving thanks for their prosperity, and in hope of good fortune in the future. Walking under the gates along the trails is a very spiritual experience, I would have been happy to spend the whole day hiking there, but we had places to go, people to see, so we took the train back to Kyoto station, and boarded another train for Nara.

Our first stop in Nara was at the Kasuga Taisha shrine. Having just experienced 10,000 gates, we were now going to meet 3,000 lanterns. The shrine is situated in a grove of trees, and walking through the woods, you feel like you have been transported to another time even though you are really just a short distance from the busy streets of Nara. The idea was that this enables you to clear your mind, and pray more effectively.

The 3,000 lanterns are symbolic of the 3,000 Kasuga shrines in Japan. The lanterns themselves represent a guiding light, and if you follow Shinto religiously you will be saved from darkness. During certain festival all of the lanterns are lit at night. That must be a totally amazing sight to see.

As you wander along the trails you encounter friendly deer along the way. Nara park is well known for its tame deer population, and they are everywhere. They apparently like to eat shika senbei, which are special crackers that you can buy for them for about 150 yen. It was such fun to see them.

After lunch we walked to the Todaiji Buddhist temple. The Nandaimon Gate at the entrance to the temple is absolutely huge, and is guarded by 2 incredibly fierce looking statues. They would be enough to scare me off.

Behind the gate is the Big Buddha Hall (Daibutsuden), which is the world’s largest wooden building. There were 2 previous temples on this site, both of which burned down. The amazing fact is that the present building, constructed in 1692 is only two thirds of the original temple hall’s size. Inside is a 15 meters tall bronze statue of Buddha. Not one of the biggest big Buddhas I have seen, but certainly impressive!

Then it was time to take the train back to Kyoto. We decided to check out the food hall in the basement of department store in the station. It was not as spectacular as the one we had seen in Tokyo, nor could I find the same chocolates I had bought there, but it was still very impressive. We decided that instead of going out to a restaurant for dinner, we would purchase food from several of the stalls to take back to our hotel for dinner. They also had champagne for sale, so I was finally able to buy a couple of bottles of Veuve Clicquot to take on board the ship. Alas, they don’t serve VC on board any more.

We returned to our room, and had a wonderful meal. We have had a great time traveling around Japan by train, now its time to explore more of the country from Queen Elizabeth ☺