todaji, Nara

reflection, a photo by asihsimanis on Flickr.

For those outside Japan, who are not that interested in Japan, you might probably never heard of Nara. The cities people usually know is Tokyo, followed by Kyoto, all the other cities are a little bit blur in every ones mind, or so I think it is.

However here in Japan, Nara is a big hit, inside my Japanese Learning Books, this city is mentioned over and over again, so yes, the Japanese people love the place, and that's why, after a lot of people selling to me how beautiful it is, I finally decided to go to see for my self.

Nara is the old capital of Japan, it has been the capital of Japan before Kyoto, so historically -and this is simply speaking , so I wont bore you with my lack of knowledge-, this is the real real real and true feeling of Japan. because first there was Nara, then Kyoto and last Tokyo. In Nara, Japan was still very much secluded from the outside world, Kyoto has been touched by more of foreign influences, and Tokyo (Edo) is even more influenced. So they say that the architecture here in Nara will represent that. Sounds really interesting and amazing right?

This picture I included here is a shot of the Todaji temple, which is exquisite because it is the biggest wooden structure in the world. You thought you would now that right, but still people are more amazed by the Golden temple in Kyoto, I wonder why Gold interest people so much.

There are a lot of temples and shrines in Nara, but from all the ones I actually saw, I love this one the most.

I must say however that I wasn't really that impressed with Nara, yes it had some deers in it, who were very cute, yes there is a lot of history in Nara, yes there are a lot of architecturally important buildings there and it really does have everything I usually fall in love with, but I didn't.

For me the whole town was gloomy, there was no festivity at all happening there, just plain history and architecture, which I didn't really like. So if you are not that much of an Old -Japan freak, I think you can conveniently skip this place.