12 March 2014
Deer overload
Today I went to Nara, one of the top tourist cities in all of Japan.
It is a much bigger city than I realised, I discovered this once on top of a mountain as seen below.
It is famous for its deer, there are over 900,000 deer, and they are not what I expected.
I assumed you paid 500 yen and went into the deer park for 10 minutes, no. The deer are everywhere, inside shops, up trees, in buddhist temples, on the bus, everyhere.
You cant turn around without another deer being there looking at you.
They are not large, and they have been de horned, still I saw a number of people who bought their useless little puffball dogs with them, and the dogs were terrified.
I also saw a few deer tear off at great speed suddently for no apparent reason, which left some kids screaming.
You could easily spend a couple of days in Nara, I spent a good 6 hours but did climb the mountain, I was the only person that did today as best I could tell, this took quite some time.
If you were a regular tourist wanting to see the sites, there are lots, its very well sign posted and everything is easy to get to on foot.
The train ride to get there costs about $5 and takes 45 minutes on the regular train. Everyone got a seat. Theres also a reserved seating express train that costs double and saves you 10 minutes, full of white tourists following someone with a flag and a whistle.
Another day of too many photos, so best start typing crap about them.
Once you exit the Kinetsu line station in Nara, you get another covered shopping street. Theres actually 2 I discovered, with lots of good looking restaurants on each.
The area around the station, another day of fantastic blue sky. Warmer, almost too warm for my jacket at times, my phone said it was 14C.
I was taken aback to be walking on the main road and all of a sudden theres a deer waiting to cross the road at the lights. Theres an ad on tv where deer take over a town, for beer I think, its a true story.
Many deer in the park, minus horns.
None the less, the sign warns you not to mess about with the deer or you will die.
If you are silly enough to buy deer food, expect to be savaged by a flock of deer. Flock? herd? gaggle?
Gate to temple looks old. Its huge. Maybe they relic'd it.
Temple itself looks new and shiny through the fence. Pretty sure you pay to get in. Not me.
I prefer to observe this mystery lightning rod.
Nearby you can buy ninja supplies. I hope mine make it home ok via Japan Post. Its interesting that buddhist temples are surrounded by stores selling weapons.
The hike up the mountain took about an hour, all smooth path no steps. The trees were impressively massive, many of them had fallen down, recently, there was lots of saw dust.
then I happened upon this behemoth, a truly massive tree about to fall down at any moment. Thats why I stood under it to take this photo.
In true Japan fashion, theres no one to be seen, but at the top of the mountain theres a heap of vending machines and a spotless bathroom.
Me, posing with my faithful deer army on the summit.
Nara below.
More of Nara below, it was certainly windy up here.
Me, with Nara below, insert something funny here cause all the pics are the same.
Another temple, with many lanterns. A path thats a few miles long with thousands of concrete lanterns takes you there. There were candles inside every one, but they looked old.
Perhaps they only light them on special occasions.
More of this temple.
Back in town near the station, time for lunch. Udon today, they made their own udon in the shop, tasted just like the stuff from the long life packets at the supermarket....
The soup however is good, I opted for thick ginger soup, and a topping of assorted mushrooms.
I got to sit at a big long table with various women picking their small children up from school, I was quite fascinating to the children, which seemed to frighten their mothers, because clearly im a drug dealer or some kind of bandit.
I have never seen Japanese women eat so fast.
Bonus panorama. WARNING, massive photo again.