Train to Nara

Working for Nova, Casey doesn't get weekends, but he's got Wed. (today) and Thurs. off. We decided we'd seen enough of Osaka, and wanted to leave the city for a little side trip, and decided on Nara. I won't go into the vast history of the place or tell you about how historically important this or that temple are (if you want to know, go here), but I will tell you it's an amazing place to be. We decided to first go to the Todaiji temple, home to the incredibly large Daibutsu Buddha. At over 15m (50ft), the solid-bronze statue dwarfs everything else in the room. There were hundreds of tourists and school kids, but we didn't mind much considering how unbelievable the temple was. After spending an hour or so at Todaiji, we hiked a hill above the old town, and watched the sun come down. Along the way we stopped off at Nigatsu-do, another of the many Todaiji temple buildings, and relaxed. After an hour or so, we headed down the hill to the newer parts of the city in search of food. We had a big okonomiyaki dinner, warmed up at a public bathhouse, then hopped on a train for the one-hour ride back to Osaka.