Moss-covered stone lanterns at Kasuga-Taisha

A path through the grounds of Kasuga-Taisha. You can see, there are hundreds of big stone lanterns here.

Minori, getting rained on, and somewhat backlit to boot ... what a crap day :P

Like I said, hundreds of stone lanterns...

The main entrance to Kasuga-Taisha

Some more lanterns, and a really cool old tree

More Nara wildlife, here's a huge vine-ey thing that was growing along the road.

One interesting thing about Nara (and actually a number of places in Japan) is that they have a bunch of deer, just kind of roaming around. These deer are so accustomed to people that you can go right up to them. They're all over the place!

I actually touched this guy's antlers .. they were really soft, and warm. I don't know much about deer, but that would be pretty cool if their antlers were actually alive!

Toudai-Ji is the biggest wooden structure in the world. Wow. This is the gate.

This is Todai-Ji. It doesn't look thatbig, but that's just because we're about 100 yards away from it.

Inside Toudai-Ji is the "Big Buddha"... really, this thing is huge ...

It's hard to tell in these pictures, but this Buddha statue is HUGE!!! For reference, one of its nostrils is approximately a meter wide. Now doesn't that just put everything into perspective for you?

Toudai-ji from another angle, this time a little closer. I couldn't fit the whole temple into the shot, it's so big.

OK, here's a national treasure repository. Heavily guarded 24 hours a day by cameras and armed men. You can't see the treasures, just the repository. In fact, this is as close as anyone gets to them because they never take them out... and it's not even a cool building...! BO-RING!!

Here's a 5-tiered pagoda, and a construction zone. Sorry about that balance ...

Koufuku-Ji.

Getting closer to Koufuku-ji. This placehad a really cool bell(in the middle), which we got to ring.

Last but not least, Gankou-Ji. The guy at the admission window took one look at me and started frantically waving English literature in my face. I had to convince him that I didn't speak English before he stopped. Amazing ...