Another Wildlife Encounter

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Jess arranged for an overnight stay in Nara, home of the largest wooden building in the World. Having spent the first three hours of our morning on the train, we sacrificed any need for R&R and, after lunch, headed straight for Todai-ji Temple to see Nara’s main attraction. Burned out by our incessant travels, I was rather lackadaisical on the cab ride over until I spotted several wild deer grazing alongside the road. As though I had been subject to shock treatment, I was jolted back to life with the blink of an eye and began pleading for time to pet the revered animals.

As we pulled up to the footpath leading to the temple, I was convinced that it was National Field Trip Day as several hundreds of young students congregated on the sidewalk, teasing the deer with non-edible objects. Unhappy with the antics of the schoolchildren, I asked Gene for a few Yen to purchase some deer food. Like Pavlov’s dogs, the deer associated my standing at the food stand with their forthcoming reward and began to crowd around me salivating before I could even hand over the money.

Gene advised me to take the food somewhere off in the distance as he and Jess were already growing irritated by the swarm of approaching deer. As I strolled into the park with a handful of crackers, I was reminded of my previous encounters with the ever-so-aggressive wallabies and kangaroos in Australia. Before long, I was surrounded by deer and nudged repeatedly by a persistent doe.

Intimidated by the feistiness of the deer, I did my best to keep in motion at all times to avoid landing myself in a deer trap. Fortunately, I was able to dodge the flailing hooves of two deer that broke out into a cracker fight within inches of where I was standing. Realizing that my love of animals wasn’t worth a kick in the face, I quickly dispersed of my food and rejoined Gene and Jess for a tour of the temple. As we attempted to evade the thousands of poop balls dropped along the walkway, I determined that feeding the animals probably wasn’t the best idea that I’ve ever had.

With shit-filled shoes, we sadly acknowledged that once you’ve seen one Japanese temple, you’ve seen them all. Todai-ji Temple was underwhelming to say the least. On our way out of the park, we were stopped by three Japanese school girls and asked if we would converse with them in English as part of a school project. We agreed to participate and signed their papers as proof that they had legitimately completed their homework.

Like the ugly Americans that we’d become, we later gorged on three pizzas for dinner at an Italian restaurant, served by our Japanese-only speaking waitress.

Good times.

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Photos

Umbrella Lock-up
Apparently, umbrella theft is quite common in Japan.

Comments

[Gene]

Not everyone can use shit-filled shoes and Japanese temple all in the same sentence. Good work Gina.

[krankberg]

fight
the dear fight picture is the best

[Acme Fixer]

Not
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest wooden structure is the blimp hangar in Tillamook, Oregon, USA.