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.
I was surprised to find that some of the temples and surrounding gardens are open at night.
By open I mean, you can walk all around the buildings on your own without anyone distrubing you, as far as I can tell theres no way to shut the non existent gate.
Behind the temple there appears to be an extensive garden, I think when I wake up tomorrow and work out what places to visit in Kyoto proper, this will be it.
In the dark, its really dark, theres streams and things lit by eerie green lights.
At the top theres some Yakuza looking restaurants, with no one around that I could see, but a plenty of Harleys. I wasnt entirely sure if I was on private property or not. I made it back down to the street with all my fingers.
Back in the main part of town, and one street back theres a whole heap of really exclusive expensive restaurants. 2 streets back are hostess bars, I think I was wandering about at opening time as lots of taxi's were arriving with heavily made up girls getting out shielding their faces.
Now to continue going insane reading the pilots rumors forum about the global conspiracy that is the missing Malaysian airlines flight.
This is a lipton cafe. The same lipton that make the worlds cheapest and crapiest teabags. Only this place looks pretty fancy, kind of like that Mcdonalds with table service they trialled some place.
They place a lot of trust in letting people wander around these temples at night, in most cities they would be covered in graffiti, broken glass, blood and urine by morning.
Looking back at Shijo dori from the gate. Long exposure nonsense.
Sake god or similar.
The garden on the hill behind the temple with the green lights. Its nowhere near as bright as that, I left the lense open for 30 seconds.
More temple, I did a few chinups on that gate.
Last one of the temple, I rang the bells on these ropes.
Owls are so last season.
Enjoy your private dining room, it probably costs a few hundred for the honour of having me and lots of people with tripods taking your photo.
These alleys contain numerous restaurants without menus. You get what you are given and you pay what you are told.
I however, preferred to find some place with pictures on the menu, up a flight of stairs, and much to my delight, I was seated at the bar looking at the kitchen.
Excellent Okonomyaki. I got added vegetables. Its an activity meal, you get a lot of things to add, and various implements to dissect it and make bits of it burnt on your own private hot plate.
At one point I melted the corner of the laminated menu.