Day trip to Nara

Here, for your education and entertainent, is a selection of photos from the trip to Nara I went on with my flatmate Mike.

Historically, the imperial capital of Japan changed location every time the incumbent Emperor keeled over, or whatever. This was obviously administratively unsound, plus being a big pain in the butt, so in 710ad, Nara was made the first "permanent" capital of Japan.

In actual fact, Nara was only the capital for around 70 years, until Emperor Kammu got fed up with being continually jerked around by baldy Buddhist monks and moved sticks to Kyoto.

Modern-day Nara is a fairly large town, with a lot of temples and other throwbacks to bygone glories.

Nara's magnificent 5-storey pagoda. Mike, for reasons best known to himself, is doing a headstand in front of it.

The following two snaps are from an ornamental garden we popped into en route to the temples. Very tranquil. Until we arrived.

One of the biggest domestic tourist attractions in Japan is actually the Autumnal leaf colours. As soon as the leaves on the trees start to turn red, you can't move for rice-pickers enthusiastically taking photos of everything. Fortunately, the Fuji crew weren't out in too much force on this occasion.

Next page - temple and shrine

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