Day 4: Away to Nara

As usual, we tried to have an earlier start, but by the time you kids get up and eat breakfast, we only mange to leave the house no sooner than 9.30am!! Headed to Kyoto Station then to buy our tickets to Nara. We almost immediately hopped into the train and headed to Nara.  

Smiling before you took a nap

KO for now

Soon we arrived at the Kintetsu Nara station:

It was a bit of a walk before we arrived at Nara Park. My friend who had visited earlier said her tour guide recommended not to buy the snacks for the deer as they could get aggressive, but daddy still bought each of you one pack:

The calm before the storm

Silly girl bowing to the deer instead of waiting for the deer to bow. 

I wonder if the deer got confused

They could be quite persistent to asking for food. We learnt that we needed to put up both hands (like "I surrender") to show them that you have no more food. 

Deer attacking Ko-ko

Don't be deceived!!

We finally finished feeding the deer as there was a sign saying not to bring the food into the Todai-ji temple. It started to drizzle as we approached the gate. 

Stopped for a quick family photo

Then we bought tickets to enter Todai-ji:

My ticket

What a sight!!

Group photo

And we had a family photo taken here with my (cacat) selfie stick. This reminds me of the one we took when we visited 17 years ago.

The inside of the temple housing the Great Buddha statue:

And of course, to collect your eki stamps too:

Looking at the wishes of other people

One shot of my little baby

Cloudy skies

Then we decided it was time for lunch. But before that, a quick stop for:

Ice-cream

Rice crackers 

(we ate this the last trip too!)

Then we decided to go to the shopping street near the Nara Station. 

We wandered around but found nothing of interest to eat. Had to double back and head up another section and finally found a place to eat called "Restau Kameya" serving okonomikayi. The server said that we had to wait to be seated, and we agreed to wait as it was better than searching for another place to eat. 

Outside of the restaurant

Small kitchen

Hungry folks

Grilled seafood

Udon okonomiyaki

Then it was time to head home. We initially planned to try a different route back to Kyoto via the JR line, but it started to rain so we headed back to the Kintetsu line where we bought (probably) the last few tickets to head home. We managed to get another eki stamp at the information center as we had time before the train arrived. It was a full train heading home.