Friday, July 15th and we’re getting to the more tourist-y part of our travels. We’ll be in Nara for 3 nights as a base camp to visit Osaka and just generally take a breather and relax with the deer. There’s a lot more foreigners on the buses and trains as we travel. So much so, that the cashier lady is surprised when Matt spoke to her in Japanese – I guess not many visitors bother to learn much of the language.
Arriving in Nara on and there were images of deer everywhere – posters on the wall, store toys, food (lots of cookies and candy in deer-shape), and even the busses had leaping deer decals on the sides. Nearly every vendor around the park sells stacks of ¥150 (less than $1.50) deer crackers or shika senbei 鹿せんべい. Not all deer are crazy about them, the fawn seemed more interested in the grass.
The hostel we’re staying at is inside the park so we’ll get to see tame deer everyday. There’s more to the park than just deer, though. Multiple designated world heritage sites are in the area, one of the most famous being the Todaiji Temple 東大寺. Within the temple is one of Japan’s largest statutes of Buddha.
Another temple not too far from Todaiji sits on a hill and at night, is surrounded by large lanterns which offers a serene view overlooking the city of Nara.
The next morning we stopped by Todaiji to get a look inside then moved on to Osaka for the day. First stop was the Umeda city for a beautiful 360 degree view of the city. Then, at Umeda Station we stopped at the Pokémon store but with the huge line we decided to come back another day.
At Osakajo/Osaka Castle, we walked around the grounds and special garden before heading over to the nearby concert hall. Back in the day, Ayumi Hamasaki 浜崎あゆみ was similar to Britney Spears in Japan. She just released her 16th album and we managed to get tickets thank to our wonderful Sapporo Tour Guides. Doors opened at 4pm, she started a bit late at 5:15pm and the final-final encore ended around 8:30pm.
Next day, we took it easy by just wandering the park and hanging out with the deer 🙂
