Nara with Tess, Danny, Lauren and her family

Lauren’s dad and his partner were in Japan at the same time as Tessa and Danny were, so I decided to take a day off of work and go with Lauren and her dad to Nara with Tess and Danny. It was a beautiful day and the sun was shining and warm. We saw some really cool temples and shrines in our travels. We decided to hire bikes so that we could get around and see things quicker as we only had one day to see Nara. We visited kofukuji and saw the five-story pegoda and the beautiful surroundings of the temple.

We also went to Kasuga Shrine which is one of the most beautiful-looking shrines in the whole of Japan. It is an orange building and has so many interesting decorations. These are lanterns hanging from the ceiling in Kasuga Shrine.


On our way to the shrine, we spotted a deer hiding amongst the stone lanterns. It looked so cute with its little head popping out that I just had to take a picture. In case you didn’t know, Nara is famous for deer.

There are hundreds and hundreds of deer roaming around freely in the town. They are not caged, but they just walk around wherever they like. They are so used to people that you can pat them and feed them and the deer are really friendly and especially good with children. This time, the male deer had their antlers cut off because it is the mating season for the deer so they can be dangerous if they still have their antlers. The last time I went to Nara, all the male deer still had their antlers, so it was a bit of a shock to see them without their antlers the second time around.



This is Lauren, Lauren’s dad and Lainey at one of the temples we went to.


The last temple we visited was of course, Todaiji.

It is the largest wooden structure in the world and my favourite temple in the whole of Japan. Inside the temple is the famous Daibutsu (a huge statue of a buddha which stands approximately fifteen metres high). I love looking at this statue because it is so large and amazing to look at. In this picture, you can see how big it is if you compare the statue to the people at the bottom.

In the temple, there is a wooden pole that has a hole through it that is the exact same size as the buddha’s nostril. If you can fit through it, you receive good luck.

So this is my second attempt at fitting through the buddha’s nostril (I did it once before when I went to Nara with Aleysha). It was surprisingly easier the second time around.