Tokyo via Nara

Nara and arriving in Tokyo

A calm night yesterday, but we still overslept and missed breakfast. Finally arrived in Nara shortly after twelve. Locked our bags up (not an easy task in those small lockers!) and tried to find someplace to eat. Being a vegetarian in Japan is not easy, but I'm getting used to the routine. I've actually cheated some and accepted meat sauce in some cases, but this time I could get a nice noddle/vegetable soup without any compromises.

We found the Tōdaiji (Eastern Great Temple) without mishaps. It's really impressive, and also surrounded by wonderful sakura blossoms.

The Nara Park, which contains most of the sights of the city, including the Tōdaiji, is populated by lots and lots of deer. They are really tame and their main food seems to be the 'deer biscuits' that tourists buy from street merchants. The deer can easily smell if you are carrying biscuits or not, so they left us alone, but chased some of the other tourists.

The park and other parts of the city are full of sights, but we also had to catch our train to Tōkyō. We arrived without problems and returned to our previously located ATM to get the money for the hostel. We even got to the correct subway station without any significant glitches. But then we needed to find the hostel.

We tried to take a cab, because we couldn't really establish our location. But apparently our destination was out of his district, so he told us to go to the other side of the station. Then we tried to walk. And we walked and walked. Finally we ended up almost where we started and found the correct sub-town, block and building. We asked some people about the hostel, but they had no idea what we were talking about. Turns out we were in the wrong ward (town/sub-city), on the wrong side of the river. We turned the map around 180 degrees and tried again. Suddenly the roads fit the map excellently and we found the place in 15 mins.

Time to sleep.