Beware of Bambi

The next morning were dropped at the Hakone train station for our first trip via Shinkansen to Kyoto. Shinkansen are the Japanese bullet trains and we were lucky to have been able to catch ours at a local station. If we had caught it at a terminal station, like Tokyo, we would have never been able to witness the Shinkansen’s full speed from the outside. We weren’t able to photograph or catch on film the first train that passed the station without stopping, but we were better prepared for the second one. What speed! There are actually three different kinds of Shinkansen: from slower to faster, they’re the Kodama, the Hikari and the Nozomi, but I was told their speed difference is mostly based on the number of stops they make.

The interior of the trains is nice and comfortable and there’s a lot more leg room than what you get on the tour buses. The Hikari from Hakone in the east to Kyoto in the west took about three hours, stopping at eleven stations, and we had the chance to get a better look at Honshu’s island landscape. Of course, Mt. Fuji stayed hidden behind the haze when we passed it, but there were plenty of other mountains, towns and rice fields to look at.

After arriving in Kyoto, we only had enough time for a quick lunch before getting on the bus to Nara. Only 30 minutes by bus from Kyoto, Nara was the first real imperial capital, back in the 8th century, and it’s still a highly popular destination thanks to housing the largest bronze Buddha statue and its famous deer park. The Buddha statue is housed at Todaiji temple and, to get there, you must first pass a few dozens of adorable deer that wonder around looking for tourists with food. After making it safely through the deer – and soon you’ll understand why I’m saying this – you arrive at Nandai-mon, a huge gate with two enormous wooden statues, a bit of larger version of the guards at Omote-mon, in Nikko.

Keep walking past the gate and you’ll come to the main hall of the temple, Daibutsu-den, which is the largest wooden structure in the world, and only two-thirds of the size of the original building. As with most temples and castles in Japan, this one has been consumed by fire and rebuilt several times. The present building was erected in 1709. If the hall itself is amazing in its size and architecture, the Buddha statue, at 16 meters tall, is awe-inspiring. The hole in one of its nostrils is big enough to fit a small human. We know this because they have made a hole at the bottom of one of the columns supporting the temple. That hole is the same size of the nostril and it is said that if you can squeeze though it, you can go to paradise. We saw actually a lot of children and even adult women go through it. I guess this means there are some advantages to being small, after all!

On our way back to the bus Steve decided to feed the deer. As soon as we approached the vendor to buy some deer crackers, we were surrounded by about twelve Bambi-like creatures, some of them with horns. They aren’t shy, and in the next 15 minutes I did my best to capture on photos and tape the way Steve was chased all around the area by numerous animals. Many pushed him, more than a couple bit him and at least one managed to get through the clothes. I am not kidding. They are greedy monsters. They made at least one little kid cry.

We eventually managed to get back on the bus – when the food was over – and rode to the nearby Kasuga Taisha shrine. I must say that by then we had seen quite a few temples and shrines on this Japan trip alone (not to mention all that we’ve seen in Singapore, Thailand and China), and the novelty was wearing off fast. What set this Shinto shrine apart from others was the fact that it was tucked away on a hill in the woods, and featured hundreds of stone lanterns, which play an important part in religious festivals. That, and more “sacred” deer. Steve insisted on getting more deer food, but this time he passed the crackers to me. Luckily, these deer were relatively more behaved than the ones at Todaiji and all they did was follow me around and nudge and push insistently. Oh, and one of them bit my shirt.

The bus dropped us back at the hotel right before it started pouring. Even though the weather had been funny for a few days, this was the first time it actually rained, so we ended up having dinner at the hotel and going to sleep early.