Monday, March 27, 2006. After checking out of the “love hotel,” we started walking toward the train station hoping to find a more decent hotel along the way. About a block before the train station, I asked a man if he knew of any cheap hotels. He pointed across the street and showed us a place called the “supa hoteru” or Super Hotel. We were able to make reservations for Monday evening, and it was a legitimate business type hotel! We left our luggage and went to the train station to head to Nara. Nara was the capital of Japan before Kyoto, from 710 to 787 AD. We wanted to see a huge Buddha statue in Nara—the largest brass statue in the world.

After arriving in Nara, we started heading toward the Kofuku-ji (happiness temple), which contains the 2^nd largest 5- story pagoda in Japan. Sam would really like to make his house just like this pagoda, but have a diving board on each level to get to his gigantic pool. Good thing he is going to be a doctor, so he can afford his pagoda!

The large Buddha statue is located in a place called the Todai-ji. In between the Kofuku-ji and Todai-ji is a park filled with deer. People can feed the deer, which have their horns cut off to protect visitors. I think I actually got a few kisses from dear trying to eat the dog food -like wafers from my mouth.

While we were walking to the Todai-ji, I took a picture of this buddist monk. People stop in front of the monk, give him money, clap, and then say a prayer.

The entrance to the Todai-ji contains a large gate with two huge statues. The fierce warriors in the gate are to prevent evil spirits from entering the temple grounds. We saw a few school children making drawings of the statues.

The Todai-ji contains the largest wooden structure (daibutsu hall) in the world. Inside of the daibutsu hall is the world’s larges bronze statue of Buddha. The Buddha inside of the hall is large enough to fit a person in the statue's hand.

There is an interesting wooden statue on the outside of the daibutsu hall wearing a red apron around her neck and a red bonnet. Here is a picture of me with the statue:

In the back of the Buddha statue is a support pole that has a hole in it that is considered the same size as the entryway into paradise. Most of the children made it through the hole, but Sam could not get through the hole. I guess Sam is going to have a rough time getting into paradise. We left Nara after eating at a soba shop.

After returning to Kyoto, we had time to see the Sanjusangendo, which is the world's longest wooden structure containing over 1,000 gold idols--spectacular, yet creepy.

We stayed the night at the Super Hotel and left the next morning for Tokyo.