It
stands about 20 metres high, and was built in 1199. 11 August. Nara.
A
relatively early start saw us at Kyoto station ready to catch the
JR train to Nara. A can of black coffee from a vending
machine was all I had, but it was enough to get the swonnicles
revolving. The journey took about an hour and we
disembarked with but one thought: breakfast! Leaving the
station and passing under the vengeful megaphones of some
political party or other, we spotted opposite Nara Station, a
traditional Japanese ... Starbucks. Coffee or Orange Juice
and cinnamon buns – and a visit to the western-style toire
- had us raring to go. We walked along Sanjo-dori,
a street of shops and cafes and restaurants, to a large pond
– Sarisawa. We spent some time watching the
terrapins (or were they turtles?) before walking into Nara Park.
We saw an imposing five-storeyed pagoda in the grounds of Kofukuji
temple, built in 1426 and still intact (a rarity in Japan).
I went into the Nara National Museum while Val and Stephen
(who’d been there before) rested on a grassy knoll outside.
The
museum was almost as hot inside as it was outside, but well worth
the entrance fee. Among a number of world-class exhibits,
the best for my money was the 8th Century cast bronze
head of a Buddha. It had an absolute serenity about it.
Another noteworthy sculpture is the 1000-armed Kannon (Buddhist
deity of mercy). In fact, she only had 40 arms (according
to the guidebook, although I could not count that many myself),
the remainder being in the 24 invisible dimensions beyond our
own. Allegedly.
We
strolled across the park. There are deer everywhere. Far
from the shy, retiring specimens that can be glimpsed in nervous
herds in Britain’s stately parklands and moors, these are
relatively assertive, not to say of criminal intent, demanding to
be fed by visitors. This is the product of over 12
centuries of protection (since they are considered messengers of
the gods), and in no little measure to the prevalence of
deer-biscuit sellers who supply their nutritious and doubtless
delectable commodity for 100 Yen a pack. Japanese parents
seem to derive a great deal of malevolent amusement from seeing
their small children reduced to tearful wrecks after being chased
by deer demanding nourishment from their tiny hands.
We
contented ourselves by buying some loaf-like (actually, expanded
polystyrene-like) sticks of Koi food to feed the fish in the
lake. They were equally voracious, almost climbing up the
proffered comestible in their greed. A passing deer mugged
us for the remnants and took them from us as of right.
From
there we entered the Todaiji temple complex via Nandaimon,
the Great South Gate. It
stands about 20 metres high, and was built in 1199.
Either
side of the gate, within the gate structure, are two statues of
benevolent Kings, protecting the inner building.
This
is said to be the largest wooden structure in the world (though
only two-thirds the size of the original, destroyed by fire (of
course) in the 17th Century.
It houses the enormous 16.2-metre high bronze
statue of the Buddha, the largest such statue in the world.
The
Daibutsuden itself apparently weighs 750 tonnes, which is
an awful lot of bronze. It still has remnants of the gold
leaf originally applied in 752.
Behind and to the
side of the statue is a thick wooden pillar supporting the roof.
It has a square hole cut through near its base. It is said
that only the righteous can crawl through the hole. In
fact, only righteous infants and midgets could make
it.
We
walked through the park to the Kasuga Grand Shrine, along
a path lined with hundreds of stone lanterns set among the trees
and bushes. These were being readied for the grand Bon
ceremonies of August held in this cultural centre. Stephen had
the misfortune to be bitten by an enormous fly, which was brushed
off his shoulder before it could inject more than a litre or two
of its venom or digestive juices or whatever gruesome substance
it squirts into its victims. At least it wasn’t a
giant killer bee. It reminds me of the limerick attributed
to WS Gilbert, who, one surmises, mistook the enormous potential
of the form and attempted to kill it off in one sarcastic –
and thankfully fruitless - attempt at versicide:
There once was a man
from St Bees
Who was stung on the
knee by a wasp.
When asked, “Does
it hurt?”
He replied, “Yes it
does,”
“I’m so glad
it wasn’t a hornet.”
However,
I digress.
We
walked further towards Sagiike lake, which has an elegant
wooden summerhouse in the middle, connected to the bank by a
walkway. We sat in the shade of the summerhouse for a
while, and then Stephen and I hired a couple of rowing boats and
paddled round the lake for a while, pausing to drink from bottles
of fizzy pop (they still have bottles with marbles in the neck.
Yippee!). Val called encouragingly to us from time to time
while resting under the cover of the summerhouse. They were
setting out little lanterns for the evening’s Bon
celebrations, and a gaggle of photographers had already taken
their preferred places before we left. It would certainly
be a spectacle worth photographing.
Invigorated,
we pressed on and found a wonderful, friendly, old-fashioned
coffee shop hidden in the bushes. It clearly dates from
before 1939, and seems to be little changed since then. We
ordered colas from the Japanese equivalent of Minnie Bannister,
who seemed of the same vintage as the coffee shop itself. Stephen
translated her conversation with Henry Crun in the back room.
“Colas? Are they the cold ones?” The colas
were indeed the cold ones and we were greatly refreshed. Minnie’s
sister sat down by the till but was completely fazed when we
wanted to pay our bill and leave. This necessitated another
backroom conversation with Henry “Well, how much are colas
then?” before we were able to settle up and leave.
Making
our way back towards the town centre, we came across a friendly
traffic warden who was clearly very bored, as there was no
passing traffic for him to wave his baton at. He engaged us
(or at least, Stephen) in somewhat philosophical conversation.
He made some cryptic notes in my diary. Apart from diagrams
of saltire crosses, a right angle separated from a circle by a
river, and what appears to be a boxing ring, they include the
following expressions. “Nara=country”. “Yamato”.
“1 10 100 1000”. “Momo”.
Stephen translated the conversation as these items were written
into my notebook. As I recall, there was some reference to
Beijing translating as the “Western Capital” and Kyoto
(and also later) Tokyo translating as “Eastern
Capital”, of the once-great over-arching empire of the east
in centuries past, or something. However, the undeniable
and memorable essence of this event was the sheer friendliness
and eagerness to please of this traffic warden.
Waving
farewell to our new friend, we walked past Sarisawa and back down
Sanjo-dori to the station. Stephen had heard of something
interesting archaeologically that he wanted to see, so we took a
taxi through the backstreets of Nara and thence to open country
to the Kofun. These are ancient tombs, massive
artificial islands in great (presumably artificial) lakes. The
island-tombs are keyhole-shaped, and are covered in dense
woodland. They are impressive because of their bulk (said
to be of equal volume to the Great pyramid of Egypt), but like so
much in Japan, they carry an air of tranquillity.
Calling
up a taxi from the phone box outside the military school, we were
delivered as close to Sarisawa as the taxi driver could get us.
Large crowds had turned up, and the lake was ringed with small
lanterns, bright in the darkness. Even the terrapins were
splashing about as the crowds sauntered around. Back down
Sanjo-dori for us, though, and thence back to Kyoto by good old
reliable JR. By then it was about 9.15pm and we were
hungry. Eventually, we decided to eat in the Hotel Granvia,
part of the enormous Railway Station complex. The Hotel
restaurant is fairly high-class with western cuisine as well as
Japanese. At the end of the meal, Stephen and I ordered
some sake: one serving of (expensive) cold sake, and one of
(cheaper) warm sake. I preferred the warm, which seemed to
have a greater depth of flavour. The waiter said that
connoisseurs prefer the “purer” taste of the expensive
sake, but to my palate it tasted rather like dry sherry without
the aroma.
A
stroll in the warmth of the evening took us back to the hotel for
a well-earned rest. We had walked a great deal. It
had been a most satisfying day.