#Tōdai-Ji

Today we took the train to Nara and visited Tōdai-ji with the great Buddha. After that, we hurried past the Kasuga-taisha temple with its thousand lanterns. We would’ve loved to spend more time in Nara, but we had to be back in Kyōto on time for the next item on the programme, the “Geisha dances”.

What sounded like pure tourist folklore on the programme turned out to be a proper theatrical performance in a Kabuki theatre in Pontocho. Of course we didn’t understand a single word, but that just meant we could pay more attention to the costumes and the singing.

After the show, we got chatting with a Japanese guy who was probably wondering how a group of foreigners had managed to wander into the theatre. He explained to us that the play is really hard to understand even for Japanese people. It was the fifth act of an old 15-act play. A part of it is performed every year.

It was a really interesting experience. The music in particular - played and sung live by a small group of female musicians - sounded unusual to our westernised ears, but good.

Today we took the bus to our final stop, Kyōtō. But first we made a pit stop in Nara. There’s a massive park there with several temples and shrines. And here too, there’s a whole bunch of tame deer roaming around freely, eating biscuits right out of the tourists’ hands.

The main temple is the Tōdai-ji, which at nearly 49 metres tall is the biggest wooden building in the world. Inside sits a giant 15-metre bronze Buddha. The most important shrine is the Kasuga Taisha, a gorgeous complex with thousands of stone and metal lanterns.

In the evening we arrived at our hotel in Kyōtō. Our non-smoking room reeked of stale cigarette smoke so badly it took our breath away. Luckily we got to move to another room, even with a better view! There we ate some sushi we’d grabbed from a supermarket after a bit of shopping.