Nara (Japan): a Day Trip

October 2019

Japan was first unified as one country in AD 710, and the capital was established in present day Nara. It remained mostly here till it was moved to Kyoto in 794. This background would imply there would be enough to see in Nara (population: 360,000), but we only had a few hours to spend on our way to Kyoto from Osaka. We were in a tour group, thus, we did not have much control over our schedule. The map above caught my eye because it shows how most tourist things are conveniently located in one area of the city. So they took us to the green area, Nara Park, as we entered the city.

8 cultural sites in Nara are grouped together as the “Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara” and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Many of the sites are within walking distance from Nara Park.

The first thing everybody noticed as we got off the tour bus were the deer. They were casually roaming around the city, and they were every where!

Our guide promised there would be a lot more deer, and he herded & steered us to Kasuga Taisha, a Shinto Shrine. According to a folklore, one of the four gods of this shrine arrived here riding on a white deer, and from that point on, the deer were considered divine and sacred. Until 1637, killing one of these sacred deer was a capital offense punishable by death. Since WWII, though, the deer have been merely treated as “national treasures.”

1,000 stone lanterns lead the way to Kasuga shrine. There are hundreds of bronze lanterns donated by worshipers inside the shrine.

We had free time to visit nearby temples as we pleased, but we chose not to do so because we were tired and we were to see a lot of temples in our next stop, Kyoto. There, indeed, were lots of deer as promised by the guide.

You can buy and feed the “deer cracker” (sanctioned by the deer protection organization) to the deer who will love you for that moment.

There supposedly live over 1,200 deer in Nara city. It is fascinating to watch these animals acting definitely more like kids than divine beings.

Todaiji Temple has the biggest bronze Buddha statue in the world. We had seen many big ones in other countries, though, and, we were not tempted to walk 20 minutes further for that . You may call us spoiled.

Nara looked like a nice walkable city & probably deserved at least a day visit. But the deer, indeed, were the most interesting attraction in the city.

trip route: LAX -> Shanghai -> Suzhou -> Wuxi -> Hangzhou -> Shanghai (Zhujiajiao) -> Osaka -> Nara-> Kyoto -> Mt. Fuji -> Yokohama -> Tokyo -> Seoul -> Beijing -> LAX