Peaches and I headed east, er south visit Nara. Nara is an old capital of Japan, but the thing people remember about it are the deer. There is a park in the middle of the town where the deer, believed to be messengers of the gods, are allowed to roam unhindered. The idea of getting up-close with some deer seemed quaint. Peaches, who has been to Nara on her previous Japanese adventure, warned me that this would not be some storybook experience, but her warnings fell on deaf ears. I was enchanted by the prospect of touching a deer. Aside from the deer we had just one target, Todaiji, a temple housing the biggest Buddha in Japan.
Supposedly Todaiji is the largest wooden structure in the world, but time and again I have found that claims by Japanese tourists sights should be taken with a grain of salt. What I know for sure is that is an impressive structure. During the trip I was frustrated that the pictures I took couldn't convey the massiveness I could plainly see in person. I have a large gallery of pictures that seem to only portrait the hulking massive Buddha as some household shrine statue. So to truly enjoy this site you have to go yourself.
It's pretty big....
See, it looks tiny right?
The building isn't a lot bigger than the Buddha itself, which seems to push against the walls. You can walk around it and view it from most angles. The rest of the building is filled with other carvings, which seemed to be haphazardly displayed. You walk clockwise around the Buddha until you come back around to a pillar that has a hole in it. The pillar, like the others found in the building is quite large, but it features a small hold in the bottom. This hole is the same size as the nostril of the Buddha statue. It is said that you can reach enlightenment if you are able to pass through this "nostril." Of course there was no way I was going to be able to fit through it, but we did enjoy watching a whole bunch of school children crawl through. There was even a foreigner who managed to squeeze through, much to the delight of the on looking Japanese people.
Just past the nostril was the gift shop, which peddled the usual Japanese tourist goods, but there was a man who was selling books. These were journals, of a sort. I'm not entirely sure but I think they are used to collect the rubberstamps that are at popular (and sometimes unpopular) tourist destinations all over Japan. We got one, and for an extra charge he offered to stamp the book with Todaiji's stamp and write a message in the book in elegant Japanese calligraphy, which we eagerly accepted. Then he wrote Peaches' name on the outside in kanji, which is 桃泉. It was quite a steal, and Peaches has been looking for such a book for quite some time.
Then we went around the park to spend some quality time with the deer. The deer are tame, almost to a fault. They are regularly fed by tourists, who buy a 150-yen bundle of deer crackers available all over the park. So the expect that people have food, which is nice when you are handing out crackers but if you are, oh I don't know, innocently filming them with a map sticking out of your pocket, a deer seeking a snack, might help herself said map. So when this happened to me I instinctively jerked on the part of the map hanging out of her mouth, but this deer was determined to eat my map and swung her head around furiously until I had to let go. Then my only option was to pronounce a curse on her where she would receive painful intestinal distress from my map that the woman at the tourist information office had carefully marked for us.
Don't be fooled. It's a polite smile; I seceretly hate her guts.
Still not disenchanted with an up-close deer experience, I bought a bundle of the crackers and began to feed the deer. They pretty much swarm you before you even have a chance to open the bundle. Then while I was feeding one deer, another deer gave me a power thrust to my backside with her nose, which had the immediate result of me giving her a cracker. I know I just participated in some serious negative reinforcement, but when faced with giving up a cracker or getting another goose, I had to choose the cracker. Misadventures aside, I felt the deer were cute, just from a distance.
They smell blood.
This one had a creepy eye.
They really are cute.
Even Peaches couldn't resist
At a festival we went to there were pachinko-esque gambling games with mickey mouse painted on the face of the game. I feel like that is dirty - using cartoon characters to lure kids into illegal activities at an early age. I suppose this happens often in America with tobacco and alcohol companies advertising to teenagers, but I guess I am naive and don't expect to see this kind of thing in Japan.
