Our next stop on our brief tour of Japan was the city of Nara. Nara was the capitol of Japan prior to Kyoto. We decided to add Nara to our trip to get more exposure to traditional Japanese culture as well as see a little more of the Japanese countryside.
For our two nights in Nara we stayed in a Ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese Inn. 
Ryokans traditionally were used for serving travelers along Japan's highways but nowadays they are not much more than popular tourist destinations for people who want to experience traditional Japanese culture. 
They typically feature tatami-matted rooms, communal baths, and other public areas.
Ryokans are known for their food and in many places have Kaesiki lunches and dinners. Our Ryokan offered a Japanese style breakfast which was excellent.
They also give you pretty awesome bath robes which allowed us to have a little fun.
We also bought some ridiculous Japanese hats to wear around as it seemed to be very popular in Japan to wear strange hats.
One thing that is rather unusual about Nara is the presence of countless tame deer. 
These deer, technically Sika deer, live amongst the people in Nara and it is one of the strangest things I have ever seen. 
They will walk down public streets, sit as bus stops, and even let you walk up and pet them. 
It's like Nara is some kind of magical fantasyland.
According to the legendary history of Kasuga Shrine (discussed below), a mythological god Takemikazuchi arrived in Nara on a white deer to guard the newly built capital of Heijō-kyō. Since then the deer were regarded as heavenly animal to protect the city and the country.
There are also a number of vendors on the street who sell deer crackers. You have to be careful though - as soon as the vendor gives you the deer crackers you get absolutely mauled by deer trying to get a taste. 
As you can see from this video, some of the deer will bite more than just the crackers.
Todai-ji
Nara is a fairly small city and we traveled around on foot for basically our whole stay. We decided to take a walking tour of the city and our first stop was the Buddhist temple Todai-ji. 
Todai-ji is the largest wooden building in the entire world. 
You can see from a few of these pictures that the temple encompasses not only the very large main hall but also the surrounding walls.
Todai-ji is home to the great bronze Buddha, known as the Daibutsu to the Japanese (Daibutsu simply means large Buddha in other cultures). 
This Buddha is so enormous that it took a great deal of effort to simply get the whole statue in the picture frame. To give some perspective, each finger in the hand of this Buddha is the size of a human.
There were also some accompanying statues and sculptures that were impressive as well
but there is little doubt the Daibutse was the star of the show.
Kofuku-ji
Kofuku-ji was another Buddhist temple that was located just down the street from our ryokan. The five story pagoda, one of the largest remaining pagodas in Japan, was impressive 
but otherwise there was not much to see here aside from the traditional shrine features.
Kasuga Shrine
The Kasuga Shrine was next on our list. This was a Shinto shrine and was in my opinion the most impressive of the Shinto shrines we visited in Japan. That isn't really saying much as Shinto shrines are by nature unimpressive.
Along the exterior of the shrine there were many stone lanterns that were carved with extreme precision.
Throughout the interior there were numerous bronze lanterns.
Of course, I was always a little unimpressed with Shinto shrines.
I understand that they are not supposed to worship any particular god but I think that is part of the problem. At least with Christianity you have the various crucifixes and with Buddhism you get the giant Buddhas - I think even scientologists have pyramids or orbs or statues of Tom Cruise or something.
I mean you walk through a whole shinto shrine and at the end you see a giant piece of looseleaf paper strung to a stick.
Very anti-climactic to say the least.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the Shinto religion is equal or superior to other religions in substance but it's image could use a visit from Xzibit and good folks at Pimp my Ride. 
Hey, maybe they could call it "Pimp my Shrine"
HA HA HA!!!!!
Yeah that's not funny.
Anyway, it was at this shrine that I received my fortune.
I paid my donation and received a fortune drawn by a process that involved shaking a large cylinder shaped container of wooden sticks, each of which had a number on it. The number at the end of the stick let us know the fortune. Traditionally I think instead of sticks they have rolled up pieces of paper but they didn't for this shrine for one reason or another.I was not thrilled with the fortune I received, which was basically a moderately good fortune, but it was better than a bad fortune so I kept it instead of tying to the pine tree, as is custom in Shinto shrines.
Yoshikien Garden
In between other major sites we also stopped by the Yoshikien Japanese Zen garden. 
I've discussed these gardens before and I won't bore you with the details but this one did have a little bit of a different feature as it had a "moss garden" which as you can see is a field of cultivated moss. 
I'd be lying if I said I was impressed with this moss garden. 
I'm pretty sure there is a moss garden growing outside my house but I wouldn't expect people to pay $5 to see it. I might even one up them and start a mildew farm and see if that impresses anyone.
Nara is a fairly small city and there is not much that goes on at night, so after hitting up a few bars where we were basically the only patrons we decided to spend a few hours in Sega World playing strange Japanese video games. I just can't get over how weird these arcades are. It's all bright lights, strange music, and loud noises. 
Once you get over the strangeness of the whole situation it actually is a really good time. We played a few video games and some air hockey, 
but by far my favorite game had to be this Japanese drum game, which is like a Japanese cartoon version of Rock Band.
Check the videos...
Waaaaaay too much fun.
We only stayed in Nara for a day and two nights before we headed back to Tokyo.
Overall Nara was a great stop on our trip. It was even smaller than Kyoto which allowed us to really relax and enjoy our time away from work. It had some great attractions, especially the Big Buddha, and it was inexplicably covered with hundreds or thousands of tame deer.
I would definitely recommend stopping in Nara if you are visiting Japan. It is small and can be seen in one day. If nothing else take a train there, buy some fifty cent deer crackers and play that weird Japanese drum video game and get back on the train and be on your way.
