The Wonderful Things About Nara

Only a 40 minute train ride away from Osaka is an elegant town named Nara. Compared to its bigger neighbor, Nara's beautiful in its own right. It's a little more suburban, a little more ancient, a little more refined. It has a large host of temples and shrines, an old styled town with merchandise filled streets, beautiful parks. And some of those set Nara aside more than others.
Take, for example, the enormous Todaiji temple. Its gate alone towers over almost any other in Japan, but it's the main hall that steals the prize for being the biggest wooden building - in the world. At the time it was built, Nara was the country's capital, and the temple was the flagship of all Japan's Buddhist temples. The current building is a reconstruction - the original was even bigger, a fact that's a little hard to digest when you're standing in front of its massive halls.

Fitting, then, that it houses one of Japan's largest statues of Buddha, a towering behemoth sitting on an elevated platform. The size of its hand alone is practically the same as that of a man standing. 14 meters tall, the sitting image of Vairocana Buddha is slightly bigger than its counterpart in Kamakura, which I've also visited several times already. Its entourage is almost equally as impressive, as it has two Bodhisattva sitting at its side. One of the pillars in the temple has a hole in it the size of its nostril, and kids  go through it. It's apparently good luck.

Outside of the Todaiji, the town of Nara itself has a number of other beautiful sights that the shortness of my trip didn't allow me to visit in detail.
Worthy of notice is the Kokufuji temple and its 5-story pagoda, Japan's second biggest after the one in Kyoto (which I've also been to!) It's easy to catch sight of, given its proximity to one of the main streets. The temple's main golden hall is currently in reconstruction until 2018, and you bet your ass that it's going to be worth seeing at that point, if food shortage hasn't destroyed humanity by then.
 As a matter of fact, the whole area around Nara Park (which deserves an article of its own and will be getting one quite soon) is gorgeous and full of amazing sights. By gaining a little elevation, one can easily spot the rolling hills beyond the city, twice as nice in the autumn colors I had the chance to see them in.

Sarusawa Pond and its turtles

And of course, its only a few hundred meters from there to the lively city center. Sarusawa pond has a bunch of turtles and minnows in it, and its presence is quite soothing. You can buy turtle food at nearby trinket shops to try to feed them, but I'd imagine feeding a turtle is a lot like watching dust settle in your belly button.
The shopping streets are filled with Nara-themed things, and it appears that their college basketball team is called Bambitious (Bambi+ambitious) which is the single worst portmanteau in the existence of mankind, but not inappropriate. You'll know why soon. I'm not done with Nara.