The first thing I noticed was the deer. They populate a vast expanse in Eastern Nara that is home to Todaiji, The Nara Museum, and a number of shrines and temples. These deer are mostly tame, although there are signs to remind you that they are wild animals and sometimes attack people. That was a comforting thought.
At any rate the Daibutsu this time was under a building. Not only is the statue larger than the one in Kamakura, the building is the largest wooden structure in the world. That was something worth seeing. I headed on inside and even bought a buddhist charm. It was more a souvenir than any belief it would work, but I got the charm for gaining new skills easily.
Todaiji, the main temple in Nara, was once the head Buddhist temple in all of Japan, and actually grew so politically influential that the emperor moved the capital away from Nara just to be out of their influence.
When I was done looking at the giant statue of Buddha (you'll have to look at my gallery for that one. If you missed it the link is up there under the picture), I went up the hill to another temple that had a great view out over all of Nara and the temple complex. I didn't even realize I was on a mountain until I looked out and saw how much higher than the rest of the city I was. It was at this point that it really started to rain.
The rain picking up and turning into a downpour, I decided maybe it wasn't so good to keep walking around the temple complex. I was stopped, repeatedly, on my way out by more elementary school children asking me my name and things about me. At least this time they were grateful enough to give me a sticker and a pamphlet for the area they were from (It was the Gifu region, if anyone was wondering). This will make the 9th time I have been interviewed by small Japanese children. At first it was entertaining, and on some level it still is, but I really didn't want to stand out in the rain to talk to them.
But I am too nice of a person to say no to small children asking in broken English if they can talk to me.
Around the temples there are a bunch of small stores with souvenir nick-knacks, and on the route from the station I found a Japanese antique store. I am declaring it the coolest store ever. If you think old things are cool, and Japanese things are cool, then it is awesome to walk into a store with Samurai helmets (both full size and decorative), Masks of all kinds (used in Japanese theater), swords, and ceramics. I spent a while just walking around trying not to touch anything. The whole 'you break it you buy it' thing is only okay if the items in question aren't upwards of 500 dollars. By the way I found a $500 carved elephant tusk in there. That was kind of cool.
The deer in the area mostly ignore you, passively eating grass or walking around. Until you buy the deer crackers. They sell little packets of deer crackers all over the park, and the second one of them smells the crackers, they're all over you. Someone volunteered to take pictures of me trying not to get eaten.
They can be aggressive.
The things are so interested in food that as soon as they see you with the crackers they come over to you. And they aren't shy. So if you hold the crackers too low they will take them right out of your hands. Two fun stories from my deer-feeding experience (besides the story about the picture above). If you feed one deer and another sees you, it might just start looking for food. More than once I felt a tug on my pocket as a deer started nibbling on my pants. One even went into my pocket and tried to eat my map. Also interesting to note, they seem to have associated plastic bags with food. Because I had a grocery bag tied to my backpack, and one of the deer decided to play tug of war with it because he thought more crackers were inside. I was literally playing tug of war with a deer over a plastic bag.If you ever want a hands-on deer experience, go to Nara. Just be careful where you keep your food.
Cory
coool!!!!
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