Yayyy it's Golden Week! Golden Week is a series of national holidays that are closely dated together in Japan. Workers often string a couple vacation days in between to make a continuous one week holiday. Lucky for me, the school is closed for the whole duration so I naturally get the whole week off!
In addition to some much needed rest and relaxation, I want to explore a little more of Japan this week. So today, I decided to head over to the city of Nara, located about an hour away via train from Osaka. It was once upon a time the capital city of Japan, so it's an interesting and old city to explore. I found an easy and not too strenuous walking tour to follow, and set out for a day adventure!
The walking tour led me to Nara-koen, a large park that contains a handful of temples and shrines that are surrounded by peaceful woods. Nara-koen is also home to a LARGE population of deer, which I completely underestimated upon my arrival.
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When I arrived in Nara, I saw a deer behind a fence. Oh cool, I thought.
I hurried over to take a picture. Little did I know... |
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| Hmmmm. Warnings...? |
And so I sat down on an empty bench to eat my lunch (rice balls from 7-11, of course) before heading up to the temples and shrines. I'm just sitting there, enjoying the scenery, when I feel a surprising nuzzle on my back. Aaaarrrrrghhhh! I jumped up to see this behind me:
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| Up close and personal! |
They have no fear!!! After this one decided that I had no food on me, a male deer walked up too and stuck his head inside my backpack. When I took that away, he looked at me with an almost-contemptuous look and peed (luckily on the ground, not on any of my possessions)!
After that hilarious but not-appetizing scenario, I continued walking up towards the temples and shrines area. Along the way, there were various carts selling cookies that tourists can buy to feed the deer. And amazingly, the deer were tame enough to just be hanging around waiting for their food.
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| Yes, they were EVERYWHERE! |
I figured the deer were pretty well-fed already, so didn't buy any cookies.
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| Human snacks. It's cute how most of them have a deer motif. |
After I got used to seeing random deer around, it was pretty cool to have them as part of the ambiance as I viewed all the impressive sights.
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| Part of the walk was through soothing, damp and lovely woods. |
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The really impressively large Nandai-mon, main gate leading to the
Todai-ji temple. |
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| View of Nandai-mon as I passed below. See, it is HUGE! |
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| Todai-ji temple. It is the largest wooden structure in the world. |
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Shoro Belfry (see the large bell in the middle?). It
would be so cool to see that being rung! |
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Entrance to Kasuga Taisha. The stone lanterns gave the space a really
dramatic old-world feel. |
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| Side of a building at Kasuga Taisha. So pretty! |
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| Ferocious dragon guarding the water basin |
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Yes, that is a deer going up the temple steps on the
left-hand side. |
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| Kofuku-ji pagoda |
I had a lovely time walking around today. Nara-koen was so pretty and peaceful, even with the Golden Week crowd!
That's a lot of deers!
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