There’s a shopping street around Nara Station, so I went and wandered that part of town.
Probably a ryokan
Starbucks
The shopping street
A bar
If Kyoto is packed with polished places to eat, Nara seems to have more of the easygoing kind.
Nakatanidou, the mochi shop
This, I hear, is the place whose popularity exploded on YouTube. Say “the Nara shopping street” and people mean this shop. The videos of the owner pounding mochi with such gusto are so much fun that people seem to come from all over the world.
Out front
It wasn’t one of the times they do the pounding show. People were just taking photos and hardly buying any mochi.
Mochi
I bought one and tried it — nicely chewy, not bad at all. Though eating a lot of it would be a bit heavy.
Nakagawa Masashichi Shoten
The brand is famous all over Japan, and apparently it started here in Nara. Nara turns out to be a more remarkable place than I’d assumed.
Kaeru-an, the soba place
This was actually where I’d meant to eat… more on that next time.
JR Nara Station
Nara has two stations: JR Nara and Kintetsu Nara. Kintetsu is far closer to Todai-ji, so there’s no real need to go out to the JR one — but I’d say Kintetsu is the better bet coming from Kyoto, and JR the better one coming from Osaka. Either way, JR sits at the far end of the shopping street, and once you’ve come this far you’ve walked a long way, so getting back takes a while too.
A back street
A narazuke shop
Narazuke are vegetables pickled in sake lees, and the smell is powerful. I couldn’t work up the courage to buy a pack and carry it around, so I came away empty-handed.
The street
A bakery
Choinomi Shokudo, a quick-drink diner
All sorts of shops here.
The arcade
There was a covered arcade as well. Step inside and there’s a whole lot more to see, but I had no time to walk all of it.
An alley
Salon, the teahouse run by Nakagawa Masashichi Shoten
They have places like this too.
Inside
Lovely atmosphere.
Some sort of wedding venue, by the look of it.
A pond
A pond
Mentouan, the udon shop
There was a long queue — it must be the local speciality.
A souvenir shop
Plenty of tourist routes around here.
In front of Kintetsu Station
Kakinoha-zushi (sushi wrapped in persimmon leaves)
It’s close to pressed sushi, and I was curious how it tasted, so I picked some up as a gift. Perfectly decent, nothing more.
The view on the way back
A fun outing all round.
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