Nara’s deerlightful inhabitants

Oh deer! It’s time for my 100^th post. Let’s start by thanking all my deerest readers, you make me deerlirious of joy, thank you for existing. <3

I have a story for you. Once upon a time, there was an epic city in a far, far away land. It so happened that one day, the Great Gods gathered together for brunch and decided on the city that should be the new Japanese capital. Obviously, this new city needed a fierce guardian. Who would be better than the brave, skilled Takemikazuchi, God of Thunder and Swords (could you sound more cool!?)? So, in 768, the God of Thunder and Swords entered the epic new city of Nara, riding on a beautiful white deer. It was the beginning of a long, deerlightful existence.

This new capital is today the town of Nara, where I arrived not on a white deer but in a Minakoju Rapid Express train. It may’ve been white.

Nara was one of the towns on my definitely-must-do-list for Japan. Namely because of the deer. Deer which roam freely around the town, who you bow to and who do not fear you like most animals would, you evil human.

It was a miserable, rainy day when I deerscended down into Kyoto station and got lost trying to find the right train, ending up on a slow train, changing half way onto a faster train, the above-mentioned Minakoju Rapid Express. Nara was as miserable and as rainy, but on the other hand, can you ever call Japan miserable? My trip had a definite purpose, but I was also acutely aware that I only had a few hours here to smile at cute deer and take in a bit of the culture and history as well.

I wandered over to Nara railway station tourist info as my first point of call, asking the kind, efficient tourist lady for a map and recommendations on how to deerect myself to Nara Park. The kind, efficient tourist lady drew me the way on her map, and then asked me if I’d like to have a ‘Free tour guide’ show me around. As always, whenever presented with a surprising option I had mentally not prepared myself for beforehand, my gut reaction was to tell myself: “Lol, no.” And as always, after a few moments of consideration, I asked myself: “Why not?” and found myself accepting the lady’s offer. I was alone anyways, I didn’t have time to stumble around the town, blindly on the quest for Bambi and mum while the clock ticked at aggressive speed. Why say no to helpful, friendly company?

I met up with Yumi half-way to Nara Park. Yumi was my Free Tour Guide, a lovely Japanese girl with excellent English, about my age. I got a free tour, she got to practise her English.

Firstly she kindly agreed to take me to the closest 7-11 – I had been hungrily dreaming of a special luxurious Nara-brunch, but realised realistically there was neither time nor suitable places for it, so I ended up buying one of them – amazing – steamed pork buns. Yumi did not outright forbid me from eating it there and then, on the street, but I gathered (as I’d gathered beforehand, too) it wasn’t the done thing, so I ended up carrying it about the templeful park until we found a nice bus stop to sit and eat at. (It was deerlicious, by the way. I deervoured it quickly.)

Most of the best areas of Nara park are part of the Kofukuji complex, the group of temples that still remain from a thousand years ago. They come in all sorts of glorious shapes and sizes, including a three-storey pagoda and a five-storey pagoda, as well as two octagonal halls (one Southern and one Northern, I’m unsure about which one this was…)

Initially Yumi was wondering if the weather was too miserable for the deer, which made me anxious. But no worries, because, in addition to ducks and Brits, it turns out deer don’t melt in the rain either. Hooray!

The further we went into the park, the more and more deer there were. As mentioned previously, Nara deer are famous for their extroverted, unshy nature, and they are equally famous for bowing to you when realising you have food. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to feed crackers to the deer, but I heard many an amusing story from my friends who had bowing competitions with the darlings.

And there were many of them.

This Nara species of deer are called sika deer, which deerives from the Japanese word for deer, sika (pronounced like Harry Potter’s Quidditch position) (in British English, obvs). Originally sika deer were abundant everywhere in East Asia, especially Northern Vietnam, but now they are commonly found only in Japan.

Interesting fact of the day: Sika deer are one of the few deer species that don’t lose their spots when they deervelop into adults.

The must-visit place of Nara Park is the huge Todaiji Temple. Like quite a few of these Nara structures, the originals were rebuilt sometime in the Middle Ages after being destroyed in wartime fires. Despite Todaiji being 30% smaller than what it originally was, its rebuilt version is still pretty massive.

It also claims top prize for largest wooden building in the world, largest statue of Buddha in Japan, and largest bronze statue of Buddha in the world. To be honest, I’m starting to get a bit confused with all these huge Buddhas claiming to be exceptional in size, but I guess this was the first big Buddha I’d seen in Japan!

I also saw many umbrellas, as you can see too. It was rainy. Maybe Mother Nature’s pet hamster had died that day.

It was great having Yumi with me, as a friend, photographer but also obviously as a tour guide, as it made me appreciate all these statues a whole lot more. Here is the main big Buddha of Japan…

And here is his student. You can recognise the student still to be human because, for example, he’s made the silly human error of having his hands the wrong way – as you can see from big Buddha, one should show the palm of your right hand, not your left. Humans are also obviously a lot more attracted to materialistic wonders, therefore you can also see the student’s glamorous accessories which he’ll get rid of when he becomes more Buddhaesque.

Another interesting fact I would’ve completely bypassed had I not been accompanied by my efficient, knowledgeable guide, was the hole in one of the temple pillars. If you manage to get through this hole, supposedly the size of one of the Great Buddha’s nostrils, you are guaranteed a place in Heaven. I decided against attempting it, partly due to large amounts of school-aged audience, partly due to the fact that if squeezing a nostril is the way to heaven, I’m unsure I want to choose that line of life. (I wouldn’t have fit anyways, heaven must only be for the super-petite and young school boys.)

By this time I only had about an hour left before my train back to Kyoto, so I dragged Yumi around a few souvenir shops where I ogled and squealed at all the adorable deer souvenirs I wanted. Deer me deer me, self-control had to be seriously practised.

Newly laden with another batch of pointless adorable souvenirs, it was now time to say thank you and goodbye to Yumi, and head back towards Kyoto.

Despite the deerpressing weather, Nara definitely endeered itself to me.

Next up: Shall we do foxes or shall we do food? We’ll see…

Deervoutly yours,

Emzy

xoxoxoxo

PS.Did you know that if you are deuteranopic, you are unable to see the colour green or to distinguish green and purplish-red? Interesting.