The city of Nara has a number of light festivals. I went for the lighting of the Big Buddha statue. Nabari Jets are really envied during this time cos we're the nearest (by train) to Nara. :))
The first thing that hits you when you get out of the Kintetsu-Nara station is not the beauty of the old city, but the smell of deer. And their droppings. Haha. I know right, kinda spoils the image, but yes, those cute deer with doe-eyes and soft fur, those majestic bucks with elegant antlers, yes, they smell. Quite badly.
But, you do get used to it quite soon. The deer are very tame, and you can buy crackers to feed them, but beware!! They come after you in a herd! Greedy things. Heh.
Jonathan with some crackers. Notice how he's holding it up in the air? That's so they don't come after him while he eats his ice-cream. The ice-cream they sell rocks! I mean, maybe it's cos it's so hot in summer or something, or they use some Hokkaido cows' milk or something, but seriously, best softserve I ever tested. Quite expensive though, 300 yen per cone. But yummy!!
What we did was to trace the steps the pilgrims took when they visited the Big Buddha in ancient times. The Big Buddha is housed in a magnificent shrine, but, I was told, commoners were not really allowed on the ground or something. However, there's a window near the roof of the shrine that is opened twice a year, one time being mid-august, hence the festival, so the pilgrims used to travel to see the Big Buddha reveal his countenance on that day.
DON'T WEAR NICE SHOES. The roads are not paved, but scattered with small pebbles. All very traditional and makes for pretty pictures, of course, but definitely a killer of nice shoes. The pathway is lined by stone lanterns, and at night, it's rather surreal and you get a sense of the mystery and sacredness that once shrouded this place.
So anyway, you walk along this pebbled path, and there are some stalls selling amazing food. Then you come to a Shrine of Spring, or the ritual was something to do with spring, haha - read the kanji on the signs. That's the thing with knowing how to read and understand chinese. You get a vauge idea of what's going on, and that kinda puts you in a state of complacency, but, unless you specifically ask someone to translate, you'll never know. And that's me. At least, with events such as these. I really only wanted to go see what the Japanese do, and I respect their sense of the sacred, but being Christian, I really can't find any true happiness in seeing this go on.
But I digress. Ok, we got to the Spring Ritual place, and it was all lined with AMAZINGLY intricately handcrafted (ok, I put in the handcrafted to make it seem more amazing) lanterns! There were very many designs, and there were maybe THOUSANDS in that one place. That, was fantastic to see. There's a sense of quiet when lanterns are used.
After the Spring shrine, we went to view the Big Buddha. Try seeing if you can see the Buddha's face through the tiny (actually really huge) window near the bottom of the roof.
There were SO MANY people there, it was so hot, and yet, there were girls in beautiful yukata, tottering around in their wooden clogs. I mean, hey, it was pretty difficult walking in normal shoes already and there they were, wooden clogs, narrow yukata skirts, daintily picking their way around the huge grounds. Flabbergasted. Entertained. I want one. Will buy one to wear during hanami next year.
Driving to Kumano (south of Mie) next for a GARGANTUAN fireworks festival. Yay!
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