Nara, Japan

DAY 8

SITES: Everything

2018-08-12, 13:42, JASON

BUDGET

Nara: the deer park city. People go here to feed pseudo-domesticated deer. Kiosks sell these stack of Ritz-like wafer crackers and the deer just come at you. Has anyone else been curious to try these biscuits? Are they digestible by humans?

It's essentially one really large park that is all within walking distance. As soon as you arrive at the Japan Rail (JR) station in Osaka, you can start to see deer walking around. I can't recall all the names of the places we went, so I'll just do a picture diary here. Here's Nara, Japan, as told by pictures.

After making it through the deer crowd, we came across a small teahouse that was selling desserts. What is it with Japanese quality, these desserts were so good.

Past the deer area, there were more temples.

Nara has a more antiquated look to it compared with the other cities we've been to. Especially since so much of the city is natural park, there are a lot of places with foliage and dense moss growing on top of the small shrines. It's straight out of a movie.

One great thing about these temples is people can hang a small, wooden board on top of a shelf of sorts (sorry, I'm butchering Culture here). On top of this small wooden board, one will write something meaningful, or wishes that they hope to come true, and hang it on the shelf. Reading through this is amusing, since it's like I'm seeing a snapshot of time. At that moment, this meant the most to that person, and they felt the need to hang it on here. Some are hilarious, some are touching, and the rest are rather generic. Here's more photos of Nara's nature and these "wishboards."

There's one particularly funny one I didn't take a picture of. The humor was in that while everyone else was writing big wishes for their family, or being successful in their life, one kid wrote, "I want a swimming pool."

Continuing on, more temples, interjected by the occasional vending machine which is as quintessential to Japanese culture as temples are.

Coming to the end of our tour, we visit our last temple and then go find food. Since Nara is more catered to tourists, it's harder to find cheaper options down the main street. Where we end up is in a small ramen shop owned by one man on an off-road, who can't be more than thirty or so years old. He's wearing a small santa hat to be festive. He greets us with a smile and I watch as he delicately puts each ingredient into his ramen until it's finally served. There are small timers, about 4, stuck on the wall so that the cooking time is precise. When he starts one, he stops the other and goes and makes the meat. He thingly slices it and places it gently on the dish. And, when the rush dies down, he takes the time to clean his kitchen and restock his goods.

It's about 16:00 and the sun is ready to set. We get on the train from Nara back to Kyoto, so we can take the Japan Rail to Tokyo. Back to the big city where we started.

One of my favorite things about the countryside in Japan is how quiet it is. No one on the train is talking. The train is not the Shinkansen (high speed rail), but a smaller, traditional train that puts along its tracks. When you look out you can only see fields set against a reddening sky during dusk. There's not a sound except for the humming of the wheel against the tracks, and a light sway of the cart in response. Clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk, in andante tempo. The tracks are laid through older, small towns and so the journey through the farmland is puncutated by views of a small town, with cars waiting at the crossroads for trains to pass. We doze off but wake up occasionally to see the view outside. When we stop, I go to the door and look out. We're in the middle of nowhere and the world seems to go on for miles. As it gets darker, we pull into Kyoto.