A first look at nara - the hostel

After the train ride from Tokyo I took earlier, I ended up in Kyoto, the nation’s capital city.  But the final destination was nara, the nation’s first 'permanent' capital.  Of course permanent is a bad word to use, but that’s what I saw something else describe nara as.  Nara was used as the nation’s capital around the 700s, but not for very long before the capital ended up being relocated to Kyoto.  Nara isn’t as easy to get to by train as the other destinations I had been to before.  It’s on the end of a line, and the train used to get there seemed a bit older than some of the others we had used in the past – it made me think that nara isn’t a common destination.

                We ended up in nara a lot later in the day than expected, and I dragged my suitcase quite a way to the guest house – it seems that its wheels are about done for and I might need to get another. We missed the guesthouse  at first but some locals must have thought we looked a bit out of place so an old woman and a kid came up to us and told us basically that we were one street away from where we should be.  Oh well.

                The guest hose that we stayed in was one of the coolest places in nara for me.  Unlike all of the other hostels/guest houses that we will be staying in, the house was about 100 years old and built in traditional Japanese style instead of the modern Japanese houses which are just like any other house.  This house was all wood floors, some stone walls with a sort of sand finish, had bedrooms with mats of straw.  The bedrooms had sliding doors that went from ceiling to floor, wall to wall.  The doors themselves were made of a wooden structure and a sort of paper cover so that the doors would let light in even when closed.  These sort of sliding doors were also used in place of some of the walls of our private room, with the purpose being to help cool or warm the room by basically opening the room up to the outside.  But since these sliding doors are delicate they aren’t suited for bad weather or good for security so our private room also had a secondary wooden door that could slide in to place and lock so that the set of sliding doors that formed one of our walls could be reinforced against weather or people outside. 

It’s difficult to explain the house in text so I took a video of it all.  Unfortunately the internet connection in this new hostel is very slow and is preventing me from uploading that video just yet.  But I do have this.

 Also two things – we didn’t have a normal bed, but one which we used during the night and then folded up and put in the corner/away to save room, as is more traditional.  Also, no air conditioning in that place.  It was hot all the time and we had to make the best of the ability to open the room up and use a fan.

               We ended up having a couples room I think, but it wasn’t a big deal.  It’s not like hostels are supposed to be private.  There was also a very old looking bathroom and living room.  It was a very cool place and  I thought whoever decided to give the old house new life did a good thing.

                Speaking of old houses. There were a lot in nara.  Either old or made to look old, some of the houses looked worn out but they still looked very nice just because of that old style of architecture.  I’d also assume even an old worn out house would still be expensive.

                Moving on to what we saw in the area!