Nara Tour

   On May 9th, we went to Nara, where was one of cities that has original Japanese history and culture. We visited Buddhism temples and Shinto shrines. I have known a little bit about Buddhism because my family believed in Buddhism. But Japanese Buddhism was sightly different from Chinese Buddhism even though they were both generated from India. Besides, I learnt how these two religions have affected Japanese people from the ancient time to nowadays, especially in their daily lives.

   There were a lot of deer in Nara. They were cute. But I was too afraid to tough them.

Todaiji Temple we visited was built in the Nara period. There was a bronze Buddha in the building which was super amazing. We were told that the building was innovated several times due to fires during the wares and the current building was about 33% smaller than the original one. However, it was still the largest wooden structure in the world.

Shinto shrines are recognized by gates like this. There was actually no god statues in Shinto shrines because Shintoism believed that gods were everywhere.However, there were a lot of stone lanterns at both sides of the path to the Shinto shrine. It was said that most lanterns were donated by folks.

The most interesting thing happened in Nara visiting was that many primary students were super nice and saying 'hello' to us. Although I didn't think they recognized me as a Chinese, I felt they welcomed our group very much. Many students need to ask questions in English in order to complete their assignments. They were really brave.

In addition, we went to a beautiful garden and different times buildings which showed the construction, custom and culture of Japanese.

It was a great but also tiring experience. Too much walking made me felt exhausted. But it was absolutely worthy.