Todai-ji

Our main reason for visiting Nara was to see the famous Todai-ji temple. From the train station, we decided to walk instead of taking the bus around Nara. It was a great exercise and we got to see all the deers roaming around Nara. 

We entered the temple gates and I was already in awe of the wooden gate and the Great Buddha Hall (daibutsuden) building. It's a large building made of wood. It has been rebuilt twice already because of fire. I can only imagine the big undertaking it took to rebuild it! Must have been a big construction and I wonder how my trees they had to cut for this building.

The daibutsuden building houses the largest bronze buddha statue. It was massive! and they had other statues inside the hall as well. 

I think every school children in Japan was on a school trip because every site we visited was packed with kids. I loved that they had matching clothes and hats for each school. A tree trunk was inside the hall with a hole at the bottom of it. Each kid was supposed to go through that hole and get a picture taken. It was hilarious to watch them and try to squeeze their body through that hole. Let me tell you that I would get stuck inside that hole with no way of getting out if I have to do it. We had a good laugh with that incident.