We fled the Tokyo rain and headed west to Kyoto, 500 km distant or 2.5 hours on the bullet train. The trip looked like this:
As soon as we arrived we 2-hit-combo’d onto a second (and very nice!) express train for the scenic city of Nara.
Here’s what we found in Nara:
They are everywhere! In front of you, behind you, even above you (if for some reason you are in a dungeon under Nara). They are Japanese Sika deer, and they have lived free in Nara for over 1000 years. Intensely fearless and curious, they swarm tourists hoping to get ‘deer biscuits’ sold by vendors:
I had just finished handing out biscuits to some deer before taking the above shot. Look closely to see the deer trying to eat the tourist guide in my pocket! I even had deer nibble on my shirt and shoelaces!
Of course Nara isn’t just about Deer… It’s also about school children on school trips:
I jest (although school kids outnumber even the deer). Nara is about sights like Todaiji temple:
Which contained this gargantuan statue:
Or the nearby shrine with 1000 stone lanterns:
Oh, a deer photobombed me.
The heat was intense today; a maximum of 95 degrees. We spent about 6 hours outdoors, and unsurprisingly this was tiring to this group of nonstop tourists. Upon eventually arriving back to our (western!) hotel in Kyoto, the sleep was bliss 🙂
