A Cold Day in .... Nara

Today was suppose to be not so cold, but with showers off and on.  Instead we had freakin cold and wind!  It was easy to navigate subway and train to get to Nara.  We got the all day transit pass and headed off to Nara Park.  This area is know for its deer - and they are every where.

There are warnings about the dangerous deer - and I did see one but into someones but.  I didn't buy any of the deer food - and one deer took offence and grabbed the map out of my coat pocket and ate the whole thing!  The round eye looking things on the top of their heads are the remains of their horns.
The next stop was Todaiji Temple.  There is a pagoda a temple, The Great Buddha Hall, which houses their Buddha collection and a museum among other buildings.

You do not actually go in most temples or shrines.  There is water to cleanse yourself before you pray in a station near the temple.  A large door is opened showing what is inside.  After you have cleansed yourself with the water you walk up to the offering box and throw your money in.  Then you ring the chime.  The long pull is between the couple.  Then you pray - the procedure is a little different depending on the sect.  But there is bowing and hand clapping in some.

Now we go through the gate and on to the Great Buddha Hall.

They even have a sample of the kind of logs used in the carving of the figures.  Also a couple of heads.

Along the streets we saw this figure in several forms.  I call him Reindeer Boy.

The lady at the information booth had circled the Nara-machi area as somewhere where we should go.  I thought it was a place where you could find a lot of restaurants.  We got off the bus and started walking down the street - no restaurants.  There were some interesting buildings so we stopped to take pictures.  I noticed a couple of Japanese tourists going into a building.  And a sign that said "free admission".  What we were suppose to see was this example of an old urban townhouse that has been restored.

That was interesting - but we are still hungry.  We take the bus back to the train station and ask

information where to find a Ramon noodle place.  She directs us across the street.

The pictures on the machine next to the door are your options for lunch.  You pay for your meal by putting money - only exact change - into the machine and receiving a ticket.  Then you go inside and show the worker/owner? your ticket and get your food.  This was located on a sharp corner so the restaurant was in the shape of a triangle.

The lady was not excited to be in the picture - and it looks like Mike wasn't either!  But the Chicken Ramon was good.  

After that we decided it was too cold to go any where else - and the buses were very infrequent in the other temple area we wanted to go to.  So we decided to go back to Kyoto.