Japan Adventure - Nara

I took a day trip to Nara which was only about an hour away from my hostel in Osaka. Since my JR pass had expired, i took the local train to Kintetsu-Nara station. A misstep on this trip was tuat definitely did not use the JR pass to my full advantage as you can use it a lot in Osaka and I didn't even use it for 3 days when I was in Hakone! Oh well, hopefully my mistake won't be yours in the future!

On my train ride there, an older Japanese lady tapped me on the shoulder with a google translate note of "do you want too switch seats for scenery?". Using our phones, we communicated and had a lovely broken english/tech assiated conversation! Her name is Ms. S, she lives in Osaka and was going to lunch with her friend in Nara. She has a 25 year old son who speaks good English and a black cat. I told her about my job, travels and dog Lucy. She reccomended shrines/temples for me to see and warned me about the typhoon tomorrow. This conversation was the first time I've really interacted with a local and it was amazing. 

Nara was Japan's first permanent capital, but honestly is mostly know now for... its deer!

The Nara Deer Park (and indeed also the streets and roads as well) houses many tame deer that you can feed. It was basically a giant petting zoo and I was in love. 

Deer 💩 smell aside (and thank God it rained later to clean off my shoes), it was so fun to purchase the 200 ¥ packages of round deer crackers. I actually purchased 2 of them. The deer have been taught to bow to you for a cracker so they are known as the bowing deer of Nara. 

After spending like an hour viewing, petting, and feeding deer, I made my way to a shrine that Ms. S had shown me to go to.

It was Kasuga Taisha, a Shinto shrine deep in Nara-kōen (Nara Park). The biggest takeaway from here was the fact that deer were wandering in and up to the shrine area as well as the lanterns that lined the walls. There were many unlit ones outside (it was daytime afterall), but there was a small section where you go inside to see the lit lanterns. Beautiful. 

I was starting to miss western food, so for lunch I found a place that served burgers with a veggie option! It was called Sakura Burger. Their veggie burger was jusr grilled onion and a whack ton of veggies with tarter sauce but it was exactly what I wanted. Plus some homemade ketchup to go with the potato Wedges and a Nara branded club soda.  

It wasn't a long time in Nara, but it was enough time. If I were to return, I'd definitely check out the Tōdai-ji temple with its massive Great Buddha as well as the Nara National Museum (closed on Mondays when I was there).