Japan - Day 5

Deer, Deer - Nara

Still in Osaka, we took a day trip out to Nara to see the deer and the temples. It’s a particularly touristy thing to do, but reassured a little as there were loads of Japanese people doing the same. It was crowded.

We went for a massively long walk - maybe 10km, which may not have been the best idea, as I'd just done my first 5km run in over a month earlier in the morning.

Travel to Nara is simple, using google maps to navigate the trains, and takes maybe about 60mins, through a combination of metro, walking and trains. Nothing complicated, and if you do happen to mess up, it's easy to correct as the trains are so plentiful.

The deer themselves are pretty tame, appearing to nod in expectation of, or thanks for, being fed the deer crackers that are sold by deer cracker vendors on each street corner. It’s the people fussing about them that you need to watch. What with stopping abruptly or walking without any idea of direction, purpose or spatial awareness. The deer further into the park - are definitely more chilled than the ones that greet you at the entrance to the park with the expectation of food - but it does take a while to get to them.

The temples were cool, and mixed - we went to the temple in the middle of the park before visiting the very popular Buddha temple that had some seriously large statues to gaze at.

Lunch, which isn't usually a memory worth recording, was a fantastic bargain - more rice and udon noodles than you could easily manage for about £5.

We visited the Umeda Sky Building in the afternoon for the views, and ventured out to the very loud and bright area of Dobutsuen in the evening where we had planned to have dinner, but in the end, didn’t as we were still full from lunch.

Dobutsuen was a bit of a disappointment - overly touristy, and no soul.

I was hobbling fairly badly by the end of the day.

Umeda Sky Building

Nara Deer

Budha Temple - Nara

Dobutsuen

Nara Deer