Day 13: Nara and Mt Inari!

 I got up early and me and 3 guys from my hostel decided to go to Nara to see the deer and the temple. 

First we stopped for some matcha and red bean mochi, you could watch them make the mochi in front of you. We got super lucky and walked up as they opened and we got the first mochi of the day. Later we walked by and the line for the mochi was around the block! It was crazy. 

Then we made it to Nara Park. The deer are everywhere and they are sooooo cute. You can buy crackers made of compressed barley to feed them, and boy do they love it. When you buy the crackers they will follow you around and try to eat your shirt in an attempt to eat your crackers. They will do a little head nod/bow to you for crackers and it’s so cute. 

Then we went to Todai-ji. Which has one of the worlds largest Buddha statues. It was 56 feet tall and in this huge beautiful temple surrounded by some gorgeous statues. It was very neat. 

Next we had persimmon smoothies and headed back on the train towards Kyoto to go to Mt Inari and shrine. 

MR Inari and the Inari shrine were incredibly cool. We walked the main path, which was very crowed, but we split off onto a back trail around the mountain where we saw very few people and got to see lots of smaller shrines. 

The path are lined with red Torii entrances. Which are the gates into sacred areas. 

Inari in Japanese is fox. Foxes in Japanese culture are respected as a type of god. They are known for shape shifting into human form and playing tricks on people, but are also messengers to the gods. 

We made our way back to the hostel, and I parted ways. The thing with traveling with other people is they are much more willing than me to spend a few bucks to save 15 minutes of walking, while I’m happy to just walk. I kept being like “ah it’s not far though”. 

For dinner I got a savory pancake called Okonomiyaki. Which is made of cabbage and egg and stopped with a good soy/savory sauce and cooked on a burner built into my table and topped with an egg.

After dinner the I met up with some friends and went out to a few bars to hang out. One girl and I ended up at a really pretty rooftop bar that someone from earlier in my trip suggested to me and we had a great night just chatting away late into the night.