Japan - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - Nara & the Great Buddha...Then, the Great Oops!!

Today would turn out to be a very interesting day. This is what the day was supposed to be like:

• Motorcoach drive from Kyoto to Nara
• Tour the Todaiji Temple to see the Great Buddha
• Motorcoach drive from Nara back to Kyoto Station
• Ride the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Nagoya
• Tour Toyota Nagoya Headquarters, Lexus Exhibit, Midland Square Visit
• Ride the Shinkansen from Nagoya to Toyohashi
• Tahara City Staff to pick us up and take us by buse across the Atsumi Peninsula
• Dinner at a Tempura Restaurant
• Check into the Irago View Hotel

This is what happened...

We checked out of the New Hankyu Hotel in Kyoto and boarded the bus to Nara. All is okay so far.  Along the way I was able to get this photo of a 7/11 store sign.

We arrived at Nara and found school children galore!!

And, we found the Nara deer. These are like the deer we saw at Miyajima. Nara is noted for these little deers!!

Through this gate we would get a little closer to the Todaiji Temple and the Great Buddha.

We would walk past a lake with a Torii Gate on it and then to the next gate before entering the area with the Todaiji Temple.

And...we finally saw the Todaiji Temple. This was the world's largest wooden structure and it was built to house the Great Buddha. Kelly told us he thinks China has built a larger wooden building now. Nonetheless, it was massive.

Claude and I, as well as others in our group, purchased incense sticks, lit them and posted them in the sand. The money is used to maintain Todaiji Temple and the Great Buddha. 

These are a couple of the things of interest as we walked across the courtyard to the Todaiji Temple.

Then, there he was, the Great Buddha. 

The position of the hands means something. There are several positions each hand may be placed in. The position and the hand forming the position mean something different. The hand position is called 'mudra'. The Great Buddha's left hand is in the varada mudra. This means compassion, sincerity, wish granting, and offering of acceptance. The right hand of the Great Buddha is in the abhaya mudra. Abhaya is a sanskrit word meaning fearlessness, energy of protection, peace, a sense of strong inner peace. So happy for the Internet to add to our understanding. Grateful for a Sudoku book in which to record this information for my Blog when I got home. Such is the nature of Sandi's travel manner.

In the Todaiji Temple are also housed two huge golden gods on either side of the Great Buddha.

Also housed there are two huge wooden figures of some kind of deity or something. Their expressions were enough to put fear in you.

Along the back wall were reproductions of the various versions of the Todaiji Temple. It has burned and been rebuilt. There were three version. This is the current temple buildings.

I caught this picture of some of our group standing along the back of the Great Buddha. Gives you a feel for how huge he really is. 

The Great Buddha sits on a lotus blossom. The base of the huge pillars that support the building also have lotus blossoms on them. This is not unlike the temples in Egypt except their columns and lotus blossoms are made of stone, not wood.

There is one column with an opening cut in it that is the size of the Great Buddha's nostril. The school kids were having great fun going through it.

This is a window in Todaiji Temple.

Claude and I finished and went outside. There was something along the front of the Todaiji Temple I wanted to get a picture of. This is Pindola. He is one of 16 arahats who were disciples of Buddha. The common belief in Japan is, if someone rubs a part of the image of Pindola and then rubs the part of his body that ails him, he will be healed. He is one scary looking dude!

These are scenes outside Todaiji Temple as we waited for our group to gather.

These are things seen from our walk back to the bus.

Todaiji is another World Heritage Site.

Now, for the bus ride back to Kyoto Station. That part went correctly. This was a rainy day and we were fortunate the rain came heavily while we were in the bus or in the train. 

At Kyoto Station, we boarded the Shinkansen and made it safely to Nagoya Station. So far, so good. 

Kelly suggested we find lockers in which to put our luggage so we didn't have drag it to Toyota Headquarters. Made good sense. We located lockers and shared yen coins to open and store everyone's luggage. Then we road the elevator to the top floor and found a nice restaurant that could seat all of us on their patio. It was rainy but we we were not in the rain. It was a little cool but we were all actually enjoying the fresh air. And, the tower that is Toyota Headquarters was our view for lunch. So far, we are doing okay.

As we finished lunch, Kelly realized we had to be on a certain train to get to Toyohashi at the right time to meet our bus ride to the Irago Hotel. Suddenly there was no time to tour the Toyota Headquarters. We all hurriedly paid for our meal and then quickly made our way to the lockers to retrieve our luggage. Things were beginning to unravel a bit.

Our lockers were right across from a Krispy Kreme donut shop. Claude and I got our luggage and he ran in and purchased a dozen glazed donuts to share on the train. At this point we were all craving a little taste from home. We were happy with Japanese cuisine but one always realizes how much they like and miss things from home.

We hurried up and found the platform to board the Shinkansen to Toyohashi. We were cutting our connection very, very close. Suddenly Kelly left our group and walked down the platform. The Shinkansen arrived and we didn't want to board without Kelly. However, those trains keep a tight schedule and that door was not going to remain open for long and there were 10 of us to board with our luggage. Then, Kelly was inside the train telling us to get on quickly. We all hurried on just as the door was getting ready to close.

We went into the green car and there were not 10 seats all close together. We could all find 10 seats, just not close together. So, we found seat throughout the same car and took them. That was when I noticed the look of Kelly's face. Not sure how to describe it but it was very clear something was not right. It turns out we boarded the wrong Shinkansen. The one we were on was the highest level and it only stopped at really major cities. It's next stop was in Yokohama...not Toyohasi. To further complicate matters, our Shinkansen tickets were not good on this type of Shinkansen. The good news is that once in Yokohama we could catch a train using our passes that would take us directly to Toyohashi. The bad news was we would be several hours late for the people picking us up with the nice bus. Yep, things were starting to unravel.

Kelly asked us to stay seated and he would talk with the conductor. He left and we all waited to see what would happen. The conductor was not happy. This would be the only experience we would have with unhappy Japanese people. He said he would accept our tickets as passage but we would have to sit in a lower priced car. Kelly accepted that gratefully as the increase in cost would have been hundreds of dollars. Kelly came back and told us to wait where we were and he would go back and find a car with enough seats for the 10 of us. We waited for Kelly.

However, a lady who worked with the conductor came into the car where we were sitting and told us we had to move now. She only spoke Japanese and Kelly was the only one of us who spoke English. Kelly was not there. Some of our group tried to communicate to her that Kelly was looking for seats and had talked with the conductor. She was having none of that. She left and returned quickly with an Japanese to English dictionary to make her point further. In order to not start an international incident, we all gathered our things and started in the direction that Kelly had gone. Through the cars marched nine Americans with their luggage. We must have been a sight. Through a couple of cars filled with school children on their way to Tokyo we marched. They looked, smiled and said, "Hello".  Eventually Kelly came back and met up with us moving back in the train cars. He told us to go to car one and he would come back. We went to car one and found seats. Claude passed out the donuts. Nothing like a good donut to soothe your bruised feelings. I realized why I was told that we should pay extra for the green car. They are located in the middle of the train which is clearly the smoothest ride. They also have seats that are larger with more leg room. The seats in car one were okay but it was more like sitting in coach on the plane. We settled in for a few extra hours of train travel.

Kelly finally joined us and explained the conductor was not happy with how the lady treated us. The reality was that there were seats enough for us in the green car and there were no stops between Nagoya and Yokohama. We were getting off in Yokohama so any seats we took would have been available for all passengers boarding in Yokohama. We were quite willing to go to the lesser priced cars and ride there. Kelly contacted our bus pick up in Toyohashi and alerted them to our situation. And we all settled down for a nice train ride to Yokohama with the possibility of seeing Mt. Fuji now and gratitude for not being in the rain. Mt. Fuji ended up being covered in clouds and not visible. But it was a nice ride anyway. The top picture is how casual Claude and I travel. Those are our JR Passes in his shoe. The bottom picture is NOT Mt. Fuji. It is just how low the clouds were on the mountains as we passed by.

We did make it to Toyohashi. It was dark, very dark. We boarded our bus and were driven to somewhere in the Atsumi Peninsula for a tempura dinner.

The food was really good and we learned how to really enjoy tempura. Then we were taken to the Irago View Hotel and given our room keys and instructions for the next morning. We were told the view in the morning would be amazing. 

So this day was an adventure. Kelly will never live down this run to Yokohama. But it is the kind of story that will get better and better with age. All is good.