Chasing the Tang Dynasty in Nara
"The deer in Nara Park really do stink to high heaven."
Nara is the poorest prefecture in all of Japan. I rose early and went to Tōshōdai-ji, where I saw the statue of Jianzhen mentioned in history textbooks—a strange and wonderful feeling. There are also qionghua (Chinese viburnum) here, which reminded me of the ones I had seen long ago at Daming Temple in Yangzhou.
The deer in Nara Park really do stink to high heaven.
Tōdai-ji is astonishingly vast, one of the largest wooden structures in the world. The tokyō bracketing of Japanese architecture doesn’t much resemble that of Tang construction.
I tried to go to Mount Wakakusa but couldn’t find the path up.