The Deer and Dear Sitings in Nara, Japan

We chose to start our time in Japan in the small town of Nara.  We thought that would give us a chance to get our legs under us in a smaller place before hitting the huge cities of Japan.  But when we found out that Nara's population was over 366,000 we realized we weren't in a small town after all.

As we walked through town, we came first to the Kofukuji Temple (pictured above).  Close to the temple is the five story pagoda.  The sun was in the wrong position to get a good picture, but we had to include it because it is the second tallest pagoda in all of Japan.

That brought us to Nara Park, home to some beautiful fall foliage and the famous Nara deer.

There are around 1,200 deer in the town of Nara, so they wandered throughout our pictures today.  We would see more of them hanging around the tents that were selling the deer crackers for 150 yen.

The deer can be a little aggressive and frightening to some younger Japanese visitors when there are deer crackers being offered.

Denisa enjoyed feeding the deer, using the crackers that frightened tourists had dropped when the deer started stampeding.

When our boys were little, we used to play the game of "what sound does a lion make?" or a monkey make? or a . . .  We never remember asking the sound for a deer.  We always thought these docile animals strolled through the forest silently . . . until today.  Here is a picture of a Nara deer with his mouth open, making their signature call that starts out like a creaking door and ends in a big honk.  We should have videoed the sound ourselves.  But Denisa was always laughing hysterically when she heard it so it wouldn't have been a good recording.  Here is a link to someone else's you-tube video if you are interested. YouTube Deer Scream

We are obviously enamored with the Nara deer, but they would prove to be about the only wildlife siting in our entire stay in Japan.  They were our special welcoming hosts to our first full day in the country.  They are protected here because they are believed to be the "messengers of god."  After listening to the you-tube video, our son Blake determined that their god must have been angry.

Our next stop was the enormous Nandai-mon gates in the northern section of the park.

But the star attraction of Nara is the Todaiji Temple.  We read that this was the world's largest wooden building.  It's actually the third time this temple has been built, as it was destroyed by earthquakes and fire two different times since it was built during the Nara Period of the 700's.

Denisa is standing among the great crowd of people visiting the Todaiji temple on this beautiful autumn day.

Buddhists stop by the pot of burning incense before they entered the thick doorways of the temple.

They are here to see the Vairocana Buddha, the largest cast sculpture in the world.  Built as a charm against the smallpox epidemic that ravaged Japan in the 700's, it was cast in bronze and then plated with gold.  Finished in 752, it has taken beatings from fires and earthquakes over the years, losing its head two different times.

The hands are in two different positions.  Above we can see the "fear not" hand.  Below you can see Buddha's left side and the "welcome" hand.  Also on the left is the Nyoirin Kannon.  Since we're not at all familiar with the religion, we can only copy the guidebook that explains that "it is one of the bodhisattva that preside over the six different realms of karmic rebirth."

The Buddha is 15 meters high (almost 50 feet).  To get a feel for the scale, there was a replica of one of the hands, with Mark standing behind it.

This statue not only has big hands, but sizable nostrils as well.  There is a pillar nearby with a hole in it the same size as Buddha's nostril.  It is said that anyone that can fit through the hole is assured of enlightenment.  We watched as a long line formed for tourists struggling to be enlightened.  Some had to be pushed and pulled to make it through the hole that went all the way through the large pillar.

Besides the bronze statues, there are several very large wooden statues as well.  Mark was standing in front of this angry-looking warrior in this Buddhist temple.  But we couldn't help but notice a tiny cross on the right leg of his garment.








We took a close up of the detailed carving of his leggings, and that cross on the middle left hand side of the picture.  We couldn't tell if it was a carved cross, or an interesting cracking of the wood, but it was a wonder to us.

We wandered through the park and the forests of Nara, finding more Buddhist temples and more Shinto shrines.  Because most of the signs were only in Japanese, we have no idea of the names or significance of most of the places we saw today.  Denisa is standing in front of a very large bell, complete with its log-sized gong.

We think this is Nigatsudo Hall.  We know that it was a pretty walk through the autumn forest to get there, with a nice view of the town of Nara from the balcony.  And of course, the deer were here as well.

Besides pots of incense, we would also see troughs of water and ladles outside of temples.  Some of them had very interesting water spouts like this dragon.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and the perfect weather for taking traditional Japanese pictures in traditional Japanese settings.  The professional photographer team was standing just outside the Torii gate to snap this picture for the family.

We asked permission to take this picture of a little boy dressed in his finest traditional gear.  He struck the modern Asian pose for us.

There seemed to be a ceremony going on at the Shinto shrine in the forest.  We watched as a line of priests descended the steps in front of us.

We followed as they made their way down forest paths, stopping at each little shrine and going through a ritual of clapping and stamping that we did not understand.  Far less impressive than the huge Buddhist temples, we have found these little shrines everywhere--on busy streets and hidden within forests.

Nara was once the capitol of Japan, and that is reason for its concentration of impressive sights.  It has a total of eight Unesco World Heritage Sites.  We stumbled onto most of them in the course of our day in Nara.  This city is also known as the City of Lamps, and there are rows of moss-covered lanterns on every path.

Sometimes a herd of Nara deer would rest between these ancient lanterns.

It looked like all of the deer had been de-horned, probably for the safety of the visitors.  We found only one buck with a full rack.

One of the things we noticed everywhere we went in Japan were the teams of elderly men and women sweeping.  Using traditional brooms, they kept the streets and sidewalks in public areas free of tree litter.  They seemed to be out in full force during the fall.

We had reached our saturation point of temples and shrines, so we headed onto the streets of Nara.  A large crowd had formed around a shop, so of course we joined the crowd.  There was yelling and pounding from the store front, where two men seemed to be beating up on some sort of bright green dough.

As soon as they transferred the battered batter from the wooden bowl, a line formed in front of the store.  As we watched many happy locals biting into the green treat, we too got in line and purchased one.

Let's just say that it must be an acquired taste.  We later found out that we had just bought a daifuku.  It is made by pounding sticky rice (mochi) and then forming it into a cake filled with sweetened red bean paste made from azuki beans.  A favorite sweet treat in Japan, we don't see it becoming popular in the markets in the U.S. any time soon. 

After a wonderful morning in Nara, we bought tickets for the 47 minute train ride to the city of Kyoto.  We found our way out of the huge train station, and then a 20 minute walk to our next room.  This is the first time we have ever stayed in a hostel, but rooms are hard to find during the fall tourist season in popular places like Kyoto.  So we booked a hostel room with a single bunk bed on the third floor.  The mattresses were 1.5 inch stiff foam, with another softer foam topper.  We used the duvet for another layer of padding, and actually slept quite well.

The bathroom was just as tiny as the bedroom, and it was shared with the other 3 rooms on our floor.











Everything was spotless and new, and they made sure that your shoes were removed before you even entered the hostel.  At the front door was a shoe rack for your street shoes, and a box of slippers to be worn inside the hostel.  

They even provided a Japanese breakfast the next morning, including boiled egg, miso soup, sticky rice, potato salad, and toast with jelly.  We would definitely stay at the Kyoto Hostel Ryokan again.