Japan day trips - Part 1

Nara

Nara was once the capital of Japan and is the home of Todai-ji:

A. in front of Todai-ji

My interest in going to Nara and seeing Todai-ji arose from a project that my brother had to do in High School. He had to build a replica of one of UNESCO's World Heritage buildings and he chose to build a miniature Todai-ji. I remember that the whole family worked on this project; I also remember being impressed with the end result. I realize now how good the replica was; when I arrived at the temple, it looked familiar. I recognized many of the details, and was impressed anew with my brother's effort.

Todai-ji is the home of a giant Buddha, about 50 feet tall and weighing 500 tons I think!

Nara also boasts of another beautiful Buddhist temple, Kofuku-ji:

Himeji & Okayama

This was my first day trip on my own in Japan. Before leaving Vancouver I bought a Japan Rail pass, which means that for 7 days I can take any JR train, including the shinkansen! My first

venture was Himeji, which is the home of another UNESCO World Heritage site: Himeji-jo. This castle is my dad's favorite. Unfortunately, we found out that the main part of the castle is undergoing major renovations. A. and dad still thought that the trip would be worth while so I headed out. To the right is a picture of the castle without all the scaffolding that I saw. I happy to report that the visit was still very beautiful, much of the interior of the castle was open and I enjoyed myself greatly exploring all the nooks and crannies of the castle!

After my visit to the castle, I decided to use my pass again to go a little further, to Okayama, to see a black castle. This castle was much smaller, but still gorgeous, and surrounded by a famous garden.

All this was a practice for Tokyo the next day! All went so well that I was confident in my ability to get around Japan and communicate in broken Japanese and English... However, Tokyo was another beast all together!