Kohfukuji

The first temple that we visited in Nara was Kohfukuji. The temple was originally erected in roughly 669 AD to pray for the illness of then statesman Fujiwara no Kamatari. The temple had been moved around a couple of times finally settling in it's current location in the middle of the capital of Nara. It grew to be one of the Four Great Temples of the Nara period and subsequently one of the Seven Great Temples of the Heian era. The temple lost a lot of it's power over the years but the great Tokugawa Ieyasu had tried to rebuild it's power by sending lots of rice to them that allowed them to rebuild many buildings. To this day it is the main HQ for the Hosso sect (Buddhist).

The more interesting buildings upon our arrival seemed to be the pagodas. The first one we witnesses was the 3 story pagoda- the original was built in 1143, but the current building was built in the Kamakura era(1185-1333). Inside is said to be wood paintings.
There is also a 5 story pagoda which is quite large to look at, indeed it is the second highest pagoda in Japan standing at 50.1 meters(according to the pamphlet received upon entrance).
Around the grounds many of the famous Nara deer had made their way...
It was our first chance to feed the deer which I quite enjoyed, they all seem to make a Japanese style bow when asking for the sembe (or fried rice cake). The male deer are a little more aggressive and will nudge you in the behind if you don't feed them or they will just follow you around. One deer thought the book that Ritsy was holding (a nice picture book of the sites of Nara that she was given for free at the temple) was sembe and tried to eat it. Here she is showing off the bitten book.
This was our first temple, and we might have been a bit tired from our journey so we didn't fully check out the entire area, but I thought it was an interesting and pleasant start.