Repository of Cultural Treasures – Todaiji, Nara

During breakfast in the hotel, I wonder why my travel friends brought quite lots of white bread wrapping them with tissue papers, I thought they would eat them in the bus during our trip to Nara. When we arrived in the park, I’d just realized that they would like to feed the deers. Nara Park (Nara Koen) is a large, pleasant park in central Nara, established in 1880. The park is home to hundreds of freely roaming deer. Considered messengers of the Gods in Shinto, Nara's deer have become a symbol of the city and have even been designated a National Treasure. Actually you also could buy from the sellers in the park, something crispy for feeding them. My friend gave me some bread in the tissue paper, the roaming deer was not patient enough, they even ate the tissue paper, there’s not enough time for me to open it. Unfortunately I could not speak Japanese :-), so I could not prohibit them to eat it.

It is the location of many of Nara's main attractions including Todaiji, Kasuga Taisha, Kofukuji and the Nara National Museum (specialized in Buddhist art). Todaiji ("Great Eastern Temple") is one of Japan's most famous and historically significant temples and a landmark of Nara. By paying 500¥ you could enter the temple, which opens 7:30 (8:00 from Nov through Mar), closes 17:30 (16:30 from Nov through Feb, 17:00 in Mar and Oct). The main entrance to the temple is through the 13th-century Nandaimon (Great Southern Gate). It features two impressive guardian statues of the Nio (Benevolent Kings), carved in 1203 and each more than 8 meters tall.

Todaiji, a temple complex in the city of Nara in Nara Prefecture, was constructed in 752 on the order of Emperor Shomu as the head temple of all provincial Buddhist temples of Japan and grew so powerful that the capital was moved from Nara to Nagaoka in 784 in order to lower its influence on government affairs. At the time Buddhism was at its height, and served as a state religion. Todajji's main temple building, the Daibutsu-den (Great Buddha Hall), 48 meters (157 feet) in height, is said to be the largest wooden building in the world. This is especially impressive in light of the fact that the present reconstruction (from 1692) is only two thirds of the original temple's size. Within the precincts of the temple, aligned along one-kilometer north-south and east-west axes centered on the Daibutsu-den, are an array of other buildings, including halls and storehouses, seven of which are National Treasures. By virtue of being one of the major historical temples in Japan, Todaiji Temple also possesses many valuable cultural artifacts. More than 20 of these Buddhist statues and other works of art are National Treasures. The repository for them, Shosoin, lives up its name of the Treasure House of the World.


The original complex also contained two 100-meter-high pagodas, probably the tallest buildings in the world at the time, but these were destroyed by earthquake. Todaiji is famous for housing Japan's largest Buddha statue. It depicts the Buddha Vairocana and, like the one at Kamakura, is commonly known as the Daibutsu (Great Buddha). The Daibutsu is made of copper and bronze, weighs 250 tons and stands 30 meters tall. His intricate hairstyle is made of 966 bronze balls.

Also of interest in the Daibutsu-den are the rear support pillars, which have holes through the bottom. Popular belief has it that if one is successful in squeezing through one of these "healing pillars," he or she is guaranteed a place in Heaven. So many Japanese students visited the temple during my visit, some of them were dare to try to go through the hole. The hole was very narrow, it’s almost impossible for a fat girl or boy to go through it. Whenever anybody succeeded to go through, the people would give applauses.

Outside the Daibutsuden at the bottom of the steps, don't miss the bronze Octagonal Lantern, one of the oldest treasures in Todaiji — it dates from the original 8th-century temple. The lantern's support post is inscribed with a Buddhist text on the merits of lighting lanterns.

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World Heritage Tourism - Prambanan

Prambanan, locally people called Roro Jonggrang is one of the largest Hindu temple compound in Yogyakarta, Central Java. It takes around 20 minutes (17 kilo metres) from Yogyakarta city. Built in the 10th century during 2 different kingdoms, i.e. Rakai Pikatan and Rakai Balitung. Since 1991 it became the member of Unesco World Heritage Center



Unfortunately some parts of the temple were ruined during the earthquake on the 27th May 2006 with 5.9 in Richter scale. Now it's under renovation, they do the rehabilitation step by step, as you could see in the photo, the main temple was on renovation during my trip on Nov 2008. If you want to donate some funding, I think it would be very helpful and it will speed up the recovery.

Rising above the centre of the last of these concentric squares are three temples facing to the East, decorated with reliefs illustrating the epic of the Ramayana, dedicated to the three great Hindu divinities (Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma) and three temples facing to the West, dedicated to the animals who serve them. Each of this God shrines facing to a smaller shrines for their vehicles. The cow, Nandi, is the vehicle of Shiva, the destroyer god, and eagle, Garuda, is the vehicle of Vishnu, the creator god, and the swan, Angsa, is the vehicle of Brahma, the guardian god. The temple height is 47 metres, higher than Borobudur.

In the middle of the area, the government built a large green garden. You also could enjoy the water fountain with some beautiful water plants. Shiva is in the middle with 4 rooms, each room is facing to different direction (East, South, West and North). The first one contains 3 metres high of Shiva statue , while others contain a smaller statue for, Durga (his wife), Agastya (his teacher), Ganesa (his son).

The Durga statue is called as Roro/Loro Jongrang (slim girl) by local people. It's a legend that a king named Boko had a very beautiful daughter. Bandung Bondowoso was interested to marry her, unfortunately she refused him because she didn't love him. Finally she agreed to marry him as long as he could build 1000 temples for a night. He agreed and started building the temple helping by the spirit. Roro Jonggrang was worried that he could finish it, so she started to wake up her waiting maids to start hit the rice, it made the cock cackled as if it's morning. The temples had reached 999 temples, he was very angry to know that she was deceitful him, so he used his magic to make her the statue to decorate the last temple.

When we walked back to the park area, we could visit some stalls which sold souvenirs, such as becak and bicycle miniatur made from iron, various handicrafts, batik clothes, etc. You have to bargain to buy here, unless you would get a more expensive price comparing to buy in the supermarket or mall. If you like historical place, don't forget to visit it, take it in the morning to avoid hot.

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Hideous Lawang Sewu

The name Lawang sewu means Thousand Doors, but among the local Javanese the name conotates an eerie haunted house with a tragic history. This Dutch colonial building was built in 1863 by C. Citroen. It was the branch office for the Dutch Indonesian train company. The Dutch architect were Prof. Jacob F. Klinkhamer and B.J Queendag. In 1920 it was used as the head office of Nederlandsch Indishe Spoorweg Naatschappij (NIS).


When you entered the main door, then climbing the stairs, you could see a big beautiful mozaic windows, at noon when the sun shines, the beautiful colour painting on the window glass were clearly seen. Most of the rooms were broken and unconserved, but the building was still strong. It took quite a huge area in the middle of Semarang city, you could see a beautiful round garden accross the building. I could imagine that there used to be many people working in the building a long time ago during Dutch colonial.

The building were divided into some parts, the bathroom were separated from the main building, until now the guard still uses it for taking a bath. The building consists of 3 levels up, and a level down. A long alley with some pillars were surrounded the building, it's good to take picture he..he.. Some small domes were build on top of the building. There was a wide yard with some old trees in the center of the building. I'm sure the building was very luxurious during 19 century.

When the Japanese invaded in 1942, they used it as a gruesome interrogation headquarter where they jailed and killed a lot of Indonesians. They used the basement as the squat jail and standing jail with no windows at all, just a small square ventilation hole for getting air (oxygen) and sunshine. You could see the basement ventilation in the picture at the bottom of the building. Sometimes the basement were flooded with water. At the squat jail you could not even stand, because it's too low. I could not imagine how they could keep alive in that kind of rooms. Poor them.

Long standing reports of multiple ghost sightings in this building has turned it into a local destination for tourists who would make their visit on weekend nights to experience this legendary haunted house. I don't dare to visit it at night, how about you? If you visit it, there were some guides who could accompany you to tell the story, unfortunately some old pictures, the building itself seem not taking care well. Anyway Semarang government has counted it as one of the historical assets that should be maintained.

Pictures were taken by Made Agus S, thanks for sharing it with us

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