Deer Country

On Sunday October 11th, to keep up with all the traveling we had been doing, Maria, Travis, Wali, and I went to a city about an hour from Osaka called Nara.  Nara is a pretty big tourist destination for its many temples and shrines and the hundreds of wild deer that roam the parks and streets of the city.  We found that we could get an unlimited day pass to Nara for about $15 so we bought them at our local train station and headed out.  After about 45 minutes on the train we were there.  Nara is very lush, hilly, and absolutely gorgeous.  We headed up the main street following the flow of traffic towards all the shrines.  We first came across Kōfuku-ji, a beautiful temple with a large 5-tiered pagoda.  It was amazing and this is also were we saw our first wild deer.  The deer in Nara are tame due to years of conditioning by tourists petting and feeding them.  They sell shika sembei which are deer biscuits on every corner.  I immediately grabbed some up at the first stand.  Petting a deer has been a lifelong dream of mine and it was about to come to fruition!  We only saw 3 deer at Kōfuku-ji and the first didn't seem too interested in our deer biscuits.  The deer in certain areas are stuffed full of deer biscuits so after a while they get picky.  There was an ugly deer that you could tell didn't get much play from anyone else so Wali fed it.  The deer gobbled up the biscuit, it was so adorable. 

We walked all around and made our way to a shady park.  We could see hundreds of deer sprinkled all over the hills.  The first deer I came across was laying on the ground and I quickly pulled a deer biscuit out for it.  It wasn't interested in the biscuits either!  So I pulled an apple out that I had packed as part of my lunch and took a bite to give to the deer.  I fed the small piece of apple and instantaneously he let out a yelp, "EEEEEEEEHHHH!"  It scared me to death!  I thought I hurt him somehow, but apparently that was a scream of satisfaction because soon I was surrounded by other deer that wanted a piece of my apple.  We walked deeper into the park and saw deer everywhere!  It was amazing.   The deer weren't like large North American deer, they were quite small even as adults.  That means the fawn were adorably tiny, the size of dogs.  We wandered around feeding any deer we came across.  Travis learned a trick that if you show an especially hungry deer you have a biscuit and then put it in your pocket, it will follow you around.  Another thing I observed is that the deer get really annoyed by children.  I would be annoyed too, though.  The kids run up to them, grab them, and try to force biscuits on them.  While Maria was taking a video, she captured and little girl get headbutted by an irate deer.  The deer have their horns shaved down so it couldn't do much damage. 

We walked all around Nara and found a little restaurant to have lunch, I had udon.  I had been really sick the days leading up to our Nara outing, so the udon was the first real meal I had eaten in four days.  It was delicious.  After lunch, we headed to the famous Tōdai-ji temple.  Its main hall is the largest wooden building in the world and it is home to the largest statue of Buddha in Japan.  The entire temple was absolutely beautiful and there were even deer walking around inside the grounds.  The Buddha was almost the height of the building.  It was impressive.  As the sun began to set, we walked to a another park with a beautiful lake.  There was a gazebo built on the lake and we stayed there for a bit.  We decided to head home once it got a little chilly.  It was an awesome day and I'm so glad I finally fulfilled my dream of petting (and hugging) a deer.