Nara! My whole life I’ve been hearing about Nara. My father was stationed in Okinawa between the Korean and Vietnam wars with the Marines and on one of his leaves he went to Nara. He’s told me many times how there are sacred deer just walking around and you can feed them. How am I not suppose to go commune with sacred deer?. Luckily in the tour I signed up for the first stop was Nara. It’s not just a town with some deer chillin’ outside. There’s a massive temple there as well, the Todaiji Temple.
Look at the size of the people to get an idea of the size of the building. It’s big. Inside is a Buddha that was built in the 700s, using up almost all of the bronze in Japan at the time. And the building only burned down twice! That’s pretty good for Japan. There were two seven-tiered pagodas on either side also built in the 700s, but due to either earthquake or fire they are gone. If you’re wondering why the Buddha’s face looks fresher than, say, his knee, it’s because his head was starting to sag at one point so in the 1700s they replaced it with a new head. I think they replaced his hands too.
There were emergency-backup golden Buddhas on either side, similar in appearance to the big central Kannon in Sanjusangendo. And poles made of metal with giant bugs on them. I liked those.
In the back was the weirdest part. One of the pillars holding up the roof has a hole bored through it. It is the exact size of the nostril of the Buddha statue. You are supposed to shimmy through the hole, and while you’re in there you make a wish. This is a real thing.
As you walk towards the temple, our guide Kimi-San said not to step on the long metal bar in the gate because it represents Buddha’s shoulder and it’s rude to step on a god’s shoulder. See what I mean about having a guide? I would have never known that without her telling me. There was no sign or anything. I would have stepped on the bar and everyone around me would have seethed and I would have put another nail in the coffin that is the reputation of Americans overseas. Get a guide. For America.
So, there’s deer. Sacred deer. 1,000 of them, standing there. They are pleasant and on the smaller side, smaller than the deer we have here on the East Coast. They are not, unfortunately, bright in any way. If anyone wants to make an argument that certain herbivores are food, these guys would be a good place to start.
The deer have hearts on their rumps.
Most of the time they stare off into the distance until anything vaguely edible happens. These poor ladies were trying to eat some lunch and were getting hassled.
See how the antlers are trimmed down to nubs? That because for $1.50 you can buy a packet of deer-cookies and the deeries will perk right up, come over to you and commence head-butting you and nipping at your clothing. When Moss went she sent me one of my favorite texts ever. “GOT BIT IN THE ASS BY A SACRED DEER.” The Moomins got a bruise on her thigh from the head-butting. I got shoved into the parking lot. Imagine how much that would hurt with antlers. (Correct answer: a lot). So that’s why their antlers are shaved off.
I cracked up with the guy above. He was feeding the deer their cookies and one was startin’ stuff with him so he smacked one in the face with the palm of his hand and it didn’t even notice. A equally good text would have been “SMACKED A SACRED DEER IN THE FACE.”
Anyone who knows me knows I have no deep love for children. I don’t hate them, I just don’t need them around me or anything. The exception was Japan. The kids there are so freakin’ cute. I took pictures of some of them. This is so completely out of character for me. It’s like me saying, “Then I solved that crazy-complicated math problem after going rock-climbing.” A bus full of little kids showed up and some of them could not wait to touch the deer. The teacher would talk to them and they would listen, but one of their tiny hands had to be in contact with the deer always. It was so adorable it hurt a little bit.
After we left Nara we went to the Golden Pavilion. It was built in the late 1300s and made it all the way to 1950 when a mentally-ill monk burned it down in a suicide attempt. Luckily someone found drawings of how the building was put together and in the mid-1950s it was rebuilt exactly the same. It’s called the Golden Pavilion because the top two floors are covered in pure gold leaf. It is also famous for having one of the best gardens in Japan surrounding it. Most of Japan is pretty darn photogenic:
But the Golden Pavilion takes the cake. It was so perfect with the gardens around it the whole thing looked fake.
This was the phoenix on the roof.
There were some statues where you could throw coins and make a wish. I suppose they’re Buddhas. As you can see, they’re carved very loosely and it’s hard to make out precisely who they are. Since there is a Buddhist temple right next to it, I’m going to go with Buddha on this one.
Off to the side was the temple and the priest’s quarters and a odd-looking pine tree. It’s called the “Land Boat Tree” and it was a wee bonsai long ago that the owner decided to plant. It got bigger and bigger and that bottom branch grew out facing West which, according to Kimi-san, is where Buddha’s “happy place” is (I think she meant heaven or the like).
The last site we went to on that day was Kiyomizu Temple. I mentioned that I swung by when I was doing the walking tour with The Moomins, but I got the thorough experience this time. It’s a big complex. Most temples aren’t just the one building, there’s ancillary buildings all around them and this was no exception. Almost all the buildings were painted this really vibrant orange.
And the main building, built in the 1600s, doesn’t have any nails holding it together. It’s all tongue-and-groove or a similar technique and when you appreciate how impressive that is is when you see the complexity of the pillar system holding up the side.
I found this on Wikipedia:
The popular expression “to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu” is the Japanese equivalent of the English expression “to take the plunge”.This refers to an Edo period tradition that held that, if one were to survive a 13m jump from the stage, one’s wish would be granted. Two hundred thirty-four jumps were recorded in the Edo period and, of those, 85.4% survived.The practice is now prohibited.
Something that was pointed out to me was that to the Japanese, religion is more like a superstition that an organized entity. Both the Buddhist and Shinto religions live side by side in harmony and you can casually switch between the two with no repercussions. There’s a lot of wish-making and the like. It seems very calm and drama-free. I found it soothing.
There were several examples of this relaxed attitude at the Kiyomizu site. One, there was this statue. I was told she was the statue that granted beauty. You rubbed her face and then rubbed your own face and you would be made beautiful.
Second, there was a long line to drink from one of three cups of water. The one on the left helped with education, the middle with love, and the right with longevity. You could only drink from one.
And third, there was an shrine dedicated to the God of Love, where there were two stones about fifteen feet apart. You were supposed stand at one stone, close your eyes, and walk to the other stone. If you made it and you were already in a relationship, it was a good relationship. If you made it and you were single, you were going to find love soon. It was recommended not to do this if you were married because most people didn’t make it over to the second stone. AWKWARD.
The only time I participated in any of these rituals was when I saw this sign:
And after I smiled at the Engrish you bet I put money in there and prayed for the people hurt in the earthquake. Either my prayers won’t do anything, or they will reach whatever God they’d like me to pray to and it will help.
A couple unrelated bits:
A cute sign on an automatic door.
A slide built on a mound of dirt. That’s brilliant! If you fall off the slide, you don’t go far and you won’t get hurt. Why don’t we do that?
An umbrella-locking station.
Fun cephalopod decals on the ceiling of the public bus.
And one of the worst attempts to mimic the Yahoo logo ever.
Next entry – snow monkeys.