So far, my friends and I have been taking a day trip about once a week. It’s a great way to explore different parts of Japan while still keeping up with schoolwork. This time, we went to Nara, which is a little over an hour away from where we are.
We wanted to get there early to buy some deer crackers before they sold out, so the plan was to leave at 6 a.m. on the dot. My friends followed through with that plan… I, however, accidentally woke up a bit late. Luckily, I was able to catch an express train.
Express trains come at different times but are not that different from the local trains. The only difference is that local trains stop at basically every station while an express train will skip some in order to reach a certain station faster. Thanks to that I was only about 30 minutes late instead of what could have almost over an hour late.
My friends told me that no one was selling crackers just yet at Nara Park, so I met up with them at Todai-ji Temple. The temple was massive! The outside was beautiful, but the inside was even more impressive. The enormous Buddhist statues were mesmerizing, and since we arrived early, it wasn’t that crowded which was a plus.
After walking through the temple and learning a bit about its history, we made our way to Nara Park. By then, the street vendors had started selling crackers, so we bought two packs of ten for about 400 yen. Even before we even bought the crackers though, the deer started to surround us, almost like they knew we were buying them food. We had to quickly walk away though as we wanted to split the crackers between us first.
Once we were able to split the crackers between us, we started to feed the deer, which was such a fun experience. They do feel a little pushy, I even got my bag and sleeve bit by a deer! But overall, they were surprisingly sweet. Also, there are warning signs all around the park since the deer are wild animals, things like “Don’t touch the fawns,” and being careful of bites and tackles, so I wasn’t shocked or upset that my stuff got bit.
I’ve seen people post videos online where the deer seem aggressive, but personally I think a lot of it depends on how you interact with them. When we were done feeding, we’d hold our hands out to show we had nothing left. Most of the deer seemed to understand and would walk away. A few sticked around hoping for more but weren’t biting at me anymore.
After we finished feeding the deer, we stopped by Kofuku-ji Temple. We didn’t go inside, but the outside was really pretty. Right nearby was the Higashimuki Shopping Street, where we tried some well-known foods. One of my friends got fresh mochi, made right in front of us every 30 minutes, which she said was really good. My favorite was the strawberry daifuku. I got a set of three mini daifuku, each a different flavor: milk, chocolate, and matcha with red bean paste. They were all delicious.
We ended the day by browsing the shopping street for souvenirs before heading back to the dorm. We spend about half our day in Nara, but we had a great time.
DU Abroad 