We checked out of the hotel and left most of our luggage with them, taking only what was necessary for the next two days. We made our way to the train station and caught a train to Uji.
Uji has two credits to its name - the Byodo-in temple, and its fantastic quality of green tea. We exited the train station after dumping our backpacks into a locker, and got a map from the TIO outside. The walk to the temple is about 15 minutes, and pretty soon, you are left with no doubt as to how much Uji prizes itself on its green tea. There are shops selling green tea rice balls, green tea chocolate, green tea ice cream, green tea noodles, you get the picture.
We kind of missed the entrance to the temple and wandered past, heading to the river, and crossing the bridge.
We walked straight into a weekend market celebrating sakura season.
Many interesting stalls abounded such as this one selling pickled cucumber.....
These guys obviously patronised the sweets and lollies......
Others collected goldfish....
And still others indulged in DIY furniture.....
Not to be left behind, we got caught up in the retail fever and ended up buying a beautiful cedar wood sculptural chair, and spent the next half an hour working out the logistics of getting it to our hotel in Kyoto, with us in English and the sellers in Japanese. We needed the tranquility of the sakura after that hectic transaction.
We figured out where the temple was, and crossed back over the red bridge.
The weather was definitely turning gloomy, but these hardy Uji dwellers were determined to have their hanami, no matter what !
We finally found the entrance to and made our way into the Byodo-in temple, made famous by its image on the Y 100 coin. Its Phoenix Hall can be viewed from outside for free, but for viewing from within, one has to pay a separate entrance fee.
We then entered the temple museum, which is a beautiful and surprisingly contemporary space housing the original wall reliefs and panels of the temple. It also has a nice gift shop, but they only take cash, and we had left our money in our bags in the locker.
We also had to buy green tea, for which Uji is world famous. We happened upon a store that was purveyor to the royal family and whose tea taster was apparently the tea tasting champion of Japan. He was kind enough to make some tea for us to taste and we ended up buying loose leaf and tea bags for ourselves and for gifts. Luckily, the store took credit cards, else we would have had to abandon the idea to buy Uji's famous produce.
We walked back to the train station, passing this very apt post box along the way.
We returned to the train station and boarded the train for Nara. At Nara station, we took a taxi to our hotel, the Toyoko Inn, which was situated a little away from the main train station. We left our bags at reception, had a quick donut and chip snack in the foyer dining space, and then set off. There is a local train station nearby, and we got on board the train for the one stop to Nara station. We took the exit for the park - Nara Ko-en. The park is filled with deer, and is very large.
Sightseeing in Nara involves a lot more walking that you expect, and it took us a good half an hour to get to the main gate of the Daibutsu Hall. The drizzle that had started around the time we had left the hotel was now a proper downpour.
From the main gatee, its another 10 minute walk to the main huge wooden structure of the Daibutsu Hall.
The Daibutsu is one of the largest statues of Buddha.
Given how bad the rain was, and that it did not look like it was going to let up anytime soon, we abandoned the idea of looking at all the other sights in the park, and decided to head straight for the other must see, the Kasuga Taisha shrine. As is evident, there were few people who were braving the elements, but the lack of the usual crowds added to the atmosphere.
Kasuga Taisha is also known as the shrine of a thousand lanterns, which are all along the path to, and within the shrine complex. It is normally very crowded, but the weather ensured that we had it pretty much all to ourselves, and it made for a very memorable visit.
We had read of an Indian restaurant in the Naramachi area of Nara, so we made our way in the cold rain through the park and managed to find it. However, the waitress there said that the food was more to Japanese taste and recommended another Indian restaurant near the station. We walked another 10 minutes towards the station and at the arcade next to the station, we decided to call it quits and walked into McDonalds. It is the only one I have seen with a grand piano !
Post our fries and burger dinner for me and Gordon respectively, we grabbed some donuts to go from Mister Donut next door and took a cab back to the Toyoko Inn for a well deserved rest.
