Nara Park

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My friends and I are traveling in Japan now. I think I won't tell about my trip in chronological order, it's boring. I'll start with what comes to mind as most fun or impressive.

One of the first things is Nara park with its deer. I've never seen so many deer so close before. It's amazing, they are not afraid if people at all.

Right at the main park entrance special deer crackers are sold. You buy them, unpack and - wow - immediately find yourself surrounded by deer. Some of them make bows asking for food, some just snatch the crackers out of your hands and more impudent ones might even butt you or pull your clothes.

It's fun to touch them and play with them. The further you go from the gate, the more hungry the deer. I've seen a Japanese couple running away from a herd of hungry deer after they ran out of crackers - looked a bit freaky =)

The park itself must be beautiful in summer and autumn but now, in winter, it looked mostly grey and unattended. However there were a few places that looked mysterious with huge trees on both sides of the path and roots winding on the ground.

At the far end of the park we went up the hill called Wakakusayama. There's a viewpoint on top of it. You can either walk or get there by car (the road is at the other side of the hill and there's a parking lot behind the viewpoint). Walking is highly recommended of course ) Usually people use stairway but to the left of it we found a small side path covered with fallen leaves. It was much more interesting to climb up through the wood along this path - we saw wild boars there!

Almost at the top the wood finished and we came to a place covered with beautiful long grass, and then it was a surprise - the last part of the path was closed for winter. Can you imagine any good reason for closing it? Maybe there are some maintenance works you can say? - no, nothing of the kind. Later one of the park keepers said that it was …for saving the grass. It sounds ridiculous because you actually can't even get to the grass - the path has railing on both sides. So what can people do with it, how can they harm? I’ve no idea.

So here we come to one of the Japanese distinguishing features – they are obsessed with prohibiting and restricting and closing. All must be in perfect order and they get really freaked out when someone steps out of the line. I’m speaking literally – we were once standing in line waiting for a bus and one of my friends stepped a little aside. An attendant rushed up to her and asked insistently to stand back so that the line was perfectly straight ) I appreciate their order but this seems really too much.

Anyway we got to the viewpoint as no park keepers were around. Enjoy the photos below =)

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Photos

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Deer head - chicken legs :)

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To get food deer turns into giraffe