A deer little place: Nara

On Friday morning we got up bright an early to catch the train to Nara. Nara used to be Japan's capital, until the capital was moved to Kyoto to prevent the Buddhist monks from getting powerful positions in government. There are quite a few temples there and most are located around a large grassy park that is inhabited by many, many deer. You can buy deer biscuits from any one of the numerous stalls all over the park. Just watch out, the bigger deer get quite unruly when they don't get their way.

We are staying just outside of Osaka in an AirBnB appartment, because all the reasonably priced hotels were booked weeks in advance. It just happens that it is a convenient 40 minute train ride to Nara from here, with only one train change.

As soon as got to Nara we headed to the information centre to arm ourselves with maps and ask about bike hire. There are info centres in both train stations and I imagine they are equally equipped with maps. The information lady also gave us a discount for the closest bike rental, so it was only 600 Yen each. I know for a fact this is not the cheapest, but it was the closest!

So away we went on our bikes to try to navigate the packed side walks of Nara. We soon decided this was the highest tourist density we had encountered in any city, especially white tourists. We rode past Kofukuji Temple without stopping; it was completely covered in scaffolding. We made a quick stop at the 5-story pagoda, where I realised I was completely sick of taking photos of temples.

Come at me bro

We were soon very glad we had hired the bikes, as we wizzed up to Todaiji Temple in not time, to see the big Buddha inside. As we walked around the back of the Buddha I wondered what everyone was lining up for. When I saw someone trying to wiggle through a small hole in a wooden pillar I remembered that if you can fit through the hole you get a corner of paradise. There were so many people out the front; milling about, getting harassed by dear for biscuits. I bought some and quickly hid them away to use as bait later.

So many tour groups and school groups!

"Arrrr! I'm so angry I broke my stick!"

Our next stop was Kasuga Taisha Shrine, after a lovely ride through the park. I have to admit, I really loved riding around the park. It was probably the highlight of the day for me, and if you go to Nara I recommend hiring a bike. Although the park looks easy to cover on foot, it's actually pretty big and we probably saved 2 hours of walking. Kasuga Taisha is known for having heaps of stone lanterns and metal lanterns. The paths surrounding the main building at edged by stone lanterns, and the metal lanterns hang from eves inside the grounds of the buildings. The inner grounds were closed to the public when we were there, but it appears they are open at times. Here's where my deer biscuits came in. I spotted a deer in the pathway and pulled out a biscuit to entice it into the stone lanterns. It reeeaaallly didn't want to step over the gutter to get there, and spent quite a while stretching out and spinning it's head from side to side to see if it could reach the biscuit by some other means. This was all very amusing to the many people passing by. I'm just glad I didn't get told off for standing among the lanterns, harassing a sacred deer. I did have success but had to get my photos quickly before everyone else got in my shot to get a photo with MY deer.

my perfectly posed photo, Ha

Since I only wanted the biscuits to tempt a deer into a photo, I thought I would just offload the rest as we left. Only to be swarmed and then bitten when I refused to give them all to the big, bully deer. Here's a tip; if you want to have a pleasant deer feeding experience, find a spot where ten thousand deer can't see you and only feed the young ones.

Deer biscuits

Whatcha got there?

Feed these deer...

... not these ones, or you will look like these people...

... And attract this many deer

It was then time for lunch, and we decided we would then head back to our apartment rather than traps our sorry bodies all over the place when we were a bit sick of shrines.