Early on Friday morning, we left to go to Nara – we wanted to be back in the afternoon to catch some more sights in Kyoto.
Nara was the ancient capital of Japan before the capital was moved to Kyoto. According to lore, the Buddhist priests at Nara began to wield a lot of influence and this forced the rulers to move the capital to Kyoto. Nara is home to a number of temples, the most significant of them being Todai-ji. The Todai-ji houses the Daibutsu-den , or the Great Buddha hall, which, as its name suggests, has one of the largest bronze statues of Buddha – this was the main reason we had wanted to visit Nara 
We took the JR Nara line from Kyoto to Nara – about a 45-50min ride. We walked from the JR Nara station toward Todai-ji. Since the Kofuku-ji temple was on our way, we stopped there briefly. The Kofuku-ji is another ancient Buddhist temple that, like the Todai-ji and several other temples in Nara, is designated a UNESCO world heritage site. The main sight in the grounds of Kofuku-ji is a 5-story pagoda. The grounds were pretty crowded, especially with school children. There were a lot of deer roaming the grounds and approaching visitors for food. The vendors made brisk business selling deer biscuits, among other trinkets and snacks.
We continued our walk towards Todai-ji, cutting through the Nara Park to get there. The Nara park sprawled a large area; surprisingly it was not very crowded. Deer seemed to be the dominant visitors to the park!
A short walk away from Nara Park was the entrance to Todai-ji. Like most other temples we had seen, the approach was lined with vendors selling food, charms and souvenirs. The deer were here too and were pampered heavily with treats by all the visiting school children. The Daibutsu-den was an immense wooden building inside which sat the bronze Buddha statue. The building is said to be the largest wooden building in the world. Like other Buddhist temples, visitors washed their hands in the water fountain in front of the building, before entering. We entered the Daibutsu-den – the Buddha statue was HUGE! The statue was so intricately made you could see each fold in the Buddha’s robe – truly a sight to behold! We walked around the statue admiring all the details. Behind the statue was an area where there was hole in a pillar that several of the school children were trying to squeeze through. Legend has it that anyone that can make it through the hole will be blessed with enlightenment!
We made our way out of the building and back into the courtyard. As we were walking out, a couple of eager school children approached us – they must have been about 8 or 9 years old. One of them said ‘Hello’. We replied back Konnichiwa – the kid was so surprised that we replied back in Japanese that it took him a few moments to get over his amazement His English was limited but he was very keen to converse with us – we tried to understand what he was saying but sadly, our knowledge of Japanese was even more limited than his English 
So, we bid him goodbye and left to walk back to the train station.
We got to Kyoto early in the afternoon. We were ravenous and ate in an Italian-inspired restaurant on the top floor of Kyoto station, that had nice views of the city. After a good meal, we headed to get to Kinkakuji or the Golden pavilion.
The Kinkakuji is one of the most famous tourist sites in Kyoto – it is a 3-story building that sits on a pond. The top 2 stories are covered in gold and a golden bird sits atop the roof. We had heard friends praising kinkakuji and were prepared to be disappointed because of all hype surrounding it. However, nothing could prepare us for its breathtaking beauty ! It was a dazzling sight to view the building with its reflection in the pond. The gardens and the pond are amazingly beautiful and serene. We even managed to spot a crane in the pond ! We walked around the gardens a little bit, admiring all the flowers and plants. We noticed some people gardening – surprisingly, they didn’t seem to be using many tools – they seemed to be removing weeds by hand. Tremendous patience, I must say!
Our next stop for the day was Ryoan-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple. The main attraction of the temple was a rock garden made up of a set of large boulders and gravel. There was a viewing area of the garden where visitors could sit down and contemplate the meaning of the arrangement. We sat down for a little while, trying to decipher any shapes and patterns but none came to mind readily. I was a little disappointed with the garden since I could not see anything fantastic about it – maybe one does really need to be enlightened to see further than the physical and into the abstract !
