Japan trip: Day 8: Nara and Engrish

We chose to go to Nara today, the nation's first capital. Before Nara was named the capital, the capital changed often, with the passing of every emporer. This was because of the Shinto beliefs surrounding death. After Buddhism became popular, this practice stopped. In 710 Nara became the capital, however, it only stayed here for 75 years. The city has a strong buddist clergy and one of them seduced an empress and almost overthrew the crown. Because of this, the capital was moved away from the Buddhist influences of Nara to nearby Kyoto. Still, Nara is a popular place to visit.

Nara was a nice break from the big city. We walked from the station to a very nice, green, and spread out part of the city. Here, Nara deer, 1,200 living national wonders, wonder freely, and ancient trees, temples, and shrines dot the vegetated landscape. The deer are very tame, used to their many visiters, and spend most of their time grazing on grass, or standing watch near one of the deer biscuit stands, waiting for someone to buy them a treat. Once you do, all of the deer in the immediate vicinity swarm you, however, they stay away from the biscuit when they are sitting, waiting to be purchased. They've learned to wait for people to buy them.

There is a lot to see in this area, but we are walking so much that we become tired earlier and earlier each day. We were really just here for the deer. After we saw those, and bought a plastic blue deer, we just turned around and walked the mile back to the station. All be told, we still walked for two or three hours today.

On our way to this part of Nara, we walked down a very pleasent one way street with lots of cute little shops along the side. I was wearing a dress that was a little too low cut, so we went into one of the shops to pick up a little shirt to wear under it (I was getting tired of pulling it up) once there we found some excelent Engrish. I bought a little sweater that says:

Cutie Correctly
We really chicks
stunning loveknot made
since 1986

and a shirt for my sister (Tina) that says:

Superb
Stunning
World Wide
Since 1982
Be Ecstatically Happy
South Coast

Lanterns in the train station

Everything gets really green after you walk through some large Torri gates

The molted skin of an insect that makes a lot of noise. My dad tells me they are called semis (pronounced see-me).

Our first deer:

We took this walkway down to a peaceful lake with a gazebo in the middle of it

I paid the 150 yen for the deer biscuits, and before I could turn around, I had been swarmed by them. One of them was nudging me for more food, and they got so close to me I could pet them. Easily the best 150 yen I've ever spent.

See how excited they get?

we made sure not to go near the baby deer

There were hundreds of these lanters along the path, with no explanation of why

Nara would be a good location to shoot a car ad

Mira!

Guarddog, you owe us 840 yen man. And yes, it has wheels

This was hilarious, it was a Japanese family with a baby boy, maybe about 1 year old. Well, they bought some deer biscuits, and the father attempted to film his wife and child feeding the deer. No one told you that they swarm you when you have food, however, and the boy was crying and screaming the whole time, backing mom (who was holding the baby) further and further back, to no avail. When the food disappeared, this male tried to eat the stroller, keep in mind, baby is still screaming at this time.

Psh, tourists

These guys were crazy, one of them was coming down hard with a heavy wooden mallet, while the other one slapped the dough with his hands. It was very fast, they were almost hitting the whole time, and they were yelling "HIA" as well. It was a great sales pitch for some pretty crappy treats.

Just to brag, both my dad and grandmother knew the Colonel personally, in fact, my dad IS a Kentucky Colonel, and my grandmother toured Japan with him back when he opened up these restaurants in Japan. Of course, it has to have a Japanese twist to it.