Nara 3: The Shrine

My appologies to the scholars out there who like to know the name of everything. It really was my intention to look up the name of this shrine, but suffice it to say I didn't. Anyway, our last stop in Nara was a lovely shrine known for the thousands and thousands of lanterns there. These lanterns are, I believe, donated by various families and have been around for generations and generations in some cases. Some of them are brass lanterns like these:


Others are stone like these:


(And I had to include the deer that practically posed for me.) The area around the shrine is filled with these stone lanterns, each with a name and the year it was donated. It's a very peaceful area. Apparently, the lanterns are lit twice a year, once in February, for reasons I've forgotten, and once in August for Obon, the Japanese celebration in honor of the ancestors. I can only imagine how beautiful it would be to go and see all those lanterns lit up on a quiet evening, but I be the crowds would be insane, too, so I'm kind of glad we saw them during the day on a day when no one was around.
From Nara, we took the bus to Kyoto. More pictures to follow...