Nara - day 7

This morning we woke up early to go to Nara, which is about an hour south of Kyoto. Nara was once the capital of Japan (from 710 to 784). The fun thing at Nara is that there are deer everywhere!! In the city, in the parks, in the streets... even in the temples! They're not even afraid of humans, so they'll just come up to you, begging for food. Once Nathalie had taken 200 pictures of the deer, we moved on to see the temples (and more deer...). The first temple we saw was the Todaiji temple, which is the biggest wooden structure in the world and which contains a giant 16 meter tall Buddha! It was one of the most impressive temples that we've seen so far for its age (752 AD) and its size. Then we had lunch in the park with the deer. Our next stop was the Kasuga Shrine, in which there are 3000 lanterns made of stone and iron. Also very impressive. After a long walk by the ponds and the park, we headed back to the train station with a delicious milkshake from McDonalds! When we got back to Kyoto, we walked around the Gion district, and discovered some new streets and temples. For dinner we went to a "beer garden" which is a restaurant on the rooftop of a high building where you get to eat and drink as much as you want for a pretty low price. We went there with two american backpackers we met in our hostel and a japanese guy from the hostel staff. After that we hung out in the lounge of our hostel with all the other backpackers.

Discoveries of the day:
- As a foreigner, you can't withdraw money from any ATM... you need to go to the post office!
- Deer attack babies!

Weather: hot and sunny