With just a quick subway ride, we arrived in Nara, looking forward to a quiet evening after the crazy hustle of Osaka. We stayed at another ryokan here (traditional Japanese inn), where we dropped off our bags and headed into Nara Park (AKA: Deer Park). If you thought there were lots of deer in Miyajima, then wait until you see Nara.

We ventured into the forest for a couple-hour hike through Wisteria, before heading back to where all the shrines and temples are. Who am I kidding? There are shrines and temples everywhere. By this point in our trip, seeing shrines and temples is the norm… or so we thought. We headed over to Todai-ji Temple, which is the largest wooden structure in the world (by combined height and area). Inside Todai-ji Temple is a near 50 metre bronze Buddha (Daibutsu), also known as The Great Buddha. This is deemed a world heritage site. The pictures don’t do justice to the immense size of this thing. Good thing we didn’t start with this temple earlier in the trip, because nothing really holds-up to this one.

By this time we had worked up a hunger… a hunger for sushi. We decided to go on a sushi crawl (you know, like a pub crawl, but with sushi). As we may never be able to have sushi again, we figured we better get as much in us as possible. So… we did. After filling our bellies we went back to our hotel and checked-in.

At most ryokans they have a public bath, which we had not partaken in when in Miyajima. Here, it is private, which seemed a little more up our alley. The bath water itself is fed via a hot spring. After a brief soak to relax our sore legs from the hike, we headed out for dinner and ate a few chicken’s worth of yakitori.

After dinner we headed to a small local bar with a rooftop patio that overlooked the town. Here we befriended the bar owner and some locals, to where I kicked their assess in Mario Kart (it’s common to have a Nintendo in bars here). Such as Miyajima, things close early here… but we ended up keeping the bar open a couple hours past closing, chatting (with the help of Google) and playing vids.

Nara is a must-see if you’re in Japan. I find the busier cities may house a lot of tourists and attractions, but the hospitality and general vibe of the smaller towns is more authentic. Having said that…

Next stop: Tokyo