When you gachapon a star: Tokyo Disney and Japan 2019 - Day 12

[Gr8WideSomewher]

Day 12: Day trip to Nara, deer, deer and more deer

Day 12, y’all! Day 12! The end is...in sight...sort of.

Content warning: If anyone has any phobias related to antlers or troubling memories related to watching Bambi as a kid your discretion is advised. This is just my smart alec way of saying there’s lots of deer in this one.

We lay in till 8:00 (that’s almost a proper lie in) and then had a leisurely start to the morning. We were still a bit uncertain what we were doing that day. We had a list of things we wanted to do, it was just a matter of what order we did them in.

Eventually, we decided to use that day to visit Nara, which is a historical city not too far from Kyoto and was once the capital city of Japan. It was also, interestingly enough, supposed to be the site of the first Disney park in Japan. Walt and a Japanese company called Matsuo were well on the way to creating the first Japanese Disneyland in the late 50s when disagreements about licensing caused the deal to fall through. This left Nara with a mostly-built, very familiar-looking theme park which they renamed Nara Dreamland and which operated through to the early 2000s. You can learn all about it in this brilliant documentary if this type of thing interests you as much as it does ya girl.



I should say that we were not going to Nara because of the Disney connection. That would be a bit pointless since Nara Dreamland has been closed for over a decade. Nah, we were going for the culture, to check off another city and be able to say we’d seen more of Japan than Tokyo and Kyoto, and, crucially, for the deer.

We walked to Kyoto station, arriving at about 9.30, and bought tickets for the limited express train to Nara. We paid for this train, which went to the central Nara station, rather than taking the train which would have been free with our JR Pass. This was purely to save my feet, as the free train took you to a station that was further from the centre of Nara and it would have been quite a long walk into and out of the town.

We left Kyoto at 9.55 and arrived at Kinkatsu-Nara station at 10.45.

The centre of Nara is kind of one big park, which contains various temples and shrines. It’s very pedestrian and cyclist-friendly. The vibe is nicely chill and, although it’s very touristy, it wasn’t overrun with people.

It was, however, completely overrun by deer.



Having said that we were visiting Nara to check out the deer, I must admit I had underestimated the extent to which the deer have completely taken over the city. I thought it might be one of those things where the deer had become synonymous with the place so, even though there aren't that many there, people still think of it as ‘the place with the deer’. I was deeply, deeply wrong about this, as you will see in our photos. In fact, the deer are (or at least were) considered sacred and are as much citizens of Nara as the humans who live there. They are free to roam wherever they like and cars and pedestrians are expected to get out of their way.




We walked from the station to the park, starting at Kofuku-ji temple. The temple itself was very pretty, but the deer were the real draw here.





They were very tame, which worried us at first as children were running up to them, giving them handfuls of food and getting very excited. We couldn't help feeling this would end with a child being bitten or impaled on a set of antlers, but it didn’t. Although the deer were very pushy and would approach anybody and nuzzle them in search of food, they remained very gentle.






One of the best things about the human-deer interaction was that both species bowed to each other whenever a food transaction took place. I think I’ve heard somewhere that if someone bows to you in Japan it’s considered rude not to bow back (we certainly picked up the habit of bowing to everybody when we were there!) and the way the deer put down their heads certainly did look like a bow. So the deer would bow to humans in thanks for the food and then the humans would bow back. And then the deer would bow again in hopes of more food, and the humans would bow back. And on and on. Throughout the day we saw groups of people bowing to deer over and over again, stuck in a loop of politeness. It was adorable!

The outside of the temple was, of course, free, but we decided to pay an extra 500 yen (£3.50) to go inside the central golden hall. There was no photography allowed inside, but it was really nice. The main feature was a big, golden Buddha which had apparently been newly rebuilt. It was very impressive.



We continued on through the park to the next temple. The deer continued to be very friendly. We didn't buy any of the deer wafers that were available at stalls throughout the park, but the deer didn't know that! They would come up and nuzzle for a bit before eventually realising there was nothing to be gained by it, and would then wander off to find an obliging child.




We stopped for a drink on the way to the next temple.



We played this gashupon outside the shop (I think this must have been Bex because I don’t remember winning any of these pins) and then went in to buy a couple of drinks, Then we went and found a bench to sit on for a bit to watch the deer and the tourists.






At one point a girl parked her bike at the bike stand, checked her Nara map, and then went into a shop to buy something, leaving her map and a bag of food in her basket. A deer approached the bike stand.



“Uh-oh” said Bex under her breath.



We both watched dispassionately as the deer systematically checked every bike to see if any food had been left behind and, finding the woman’s bag, gobbled up the entire thing, food, bag and map.



He then knocked over the row of bikes for good measure. It was hilarious, but we decided not to hang around to see the woman’s face when she returned to find that her lunch and way of navigating the city had disappeared.



You may think we were mean to find this funny but a) shadenfreude, don’t say you don’t experience it, and b) there was a sign literally next to where the woman had parked her bike telling cyclists not to leave things in their bike baskets.


See? The deer had both ‘eat and mischief’, so she can’t say she wasn’t warned.

The next temple was Todai-ji which was even more beautiful than Kofuku-ji, and had a similar number of deer chilling all over the place.








We paid an extra 1000 yen (£7) to go into the temple, and though we hadn’t really been sure the extra money was worth it for Kofuku-ji (although of course it’s good to try and support these free tourist attractions if you can), this was totally worth it.





We’d thought the Buddha statue in Kofuku-ji was quite impressive, but it was nothing compared to the one in Todai-ji! This was the biggest bronze Buddha statue in the world, housed in the biggest wooden building in the world. And, big bonus, we were allowed to take pictures for once!







As you can see the Buddha was ginormous, nearly touching the ceiling, and dominated the room. It was actually so big that it blocked out the light in a lot of places, which is my excuse for why my pictures of everything in the building are so rubbish!







We finished at Todai-ji at about 13:15 and by this time were hungry for some lunch.


We saw this wooden statue outside the main hall. I really like the way they’ve given him a little rain hood.

Finding food took a bit longer than we’d thought it would. There were restaurants all over the place, it seemed, but most of them were definitely on the pricey side. By 14:00 we were a bit fed up with walking around. Luckily we found a courtyard which had a few restaurant choices in it. We went for the only affordable one, which was called Happy Kitchen, but unfortunately had to sit outside (it was really hot and clammy, for a change, so we wanted to sit indoors) as they only had one table left.

Bex ordered a shrimp burger and I ordered a Japanese barbecue burger with shredded beef and we each had a drink. It came to 2,960 yen - over £20! We thought this was very steep for two burgers (without fries) and two drinks, but it’s not like we had a lot of options.




Both of the burgers were OK and the buns did have a picture of a deer stamped on them, so that’s something.

[Gr8WideSomewher]

Part 2

We took about half an hour for lunch and then set off for the Kasuga Shrine. It took about 20 minutes to walk there, we were moving slowly as we had to stop to take pictures of deer every few minutes, but it was definitely worth it.





It was probably the prettiest spot we’d seen in Nara. The statues, stone pillars and torii gates covered a wide area, lining the walkways, and snaking up a hill into the forest. The way that the manmade and natural features blended together was really beautiful, and of course, the deer posing picturesquely next to things just made it even more atmospheric.








We walked around and took as many pictures as we could, but it was just too hot to stay long. We were both feeling (and looking) a bit gross by this point, which took the fun away a bit. We realised later that we’d both managed to get sunburnt, despite the fact that there was no sun! Part of me wishes we’d gone to Kasuga earlier in the day so we could have enjoyed it a bit more, as it was definitely my favourite bit of Nara.






We called it a day at about 15:30 and walked back to the station. The walk took about 35 minutes but was quite nice because we got to watch the deer along the way. And the bowing tourists, which was also fun.



You don’t have food? Oh bye then.




We got back to the station and went into the Lawson to pick up some drinks. I decided to try this salty lychee drink because I adore lychees and it was amazing! After this, I bought salty lychee whenever it was available.



We also killed some time before our train left by playing on our second gashupon of the day. I won a little pic with one of the temples on it.

We caught the train back to Kyoto at 16:15 and were lucky to get a seat for the 45-minute journey. It was extremely busy. We were back in our hotel room by 17:15 and ready for a bit of a rest.


As usual, I remembered to take a picture of the hotel room after we’d already messed it up.

After a half-hour or so in the hotel room, we decided to go down and try the hotel’s public bath. We reasoned that it wouldn’t be busy so early in the evening and we were right. It was just us down there for most of the time, which was lucky as this was our first proper experience of Japanese baths. We had obviously gone in the hot springs when were in Hakone, but that had been a clothed experience and a bit more like a swimming pool or water park. Being British, we were naturally a bit self-conscious and were glad we were alone for most of the experience. Towards the end, another two women turned up and we left quite soon after. It was a good experience, but I wasn’t too keen to repeat it because I'd found the water too hot to properly relax in.

A bit later, after proper showers and a bit of a rest in our hotel room, we decided to go to a department store on the other side of Kyoto station. Gashupon machines were Becky’s newest obsession. She had been researching them voraciously over the past few days and had discovered that this particular department store, only 15 minutes’ walk or so from our hotel, held a magnificent collection of gashupons. We, therefore, decided to head out and indulge in our new hobby!

As usual we got a bit lost trying to find the store - we could see it as it was a big tall building with its name (Yodobashi) in big letters across the front, but we couldn’t for the life of us work out how to get there. It turned out we had to use a very specific underpass and then take a side street. We made it eventually.




The toy department, where the gashupon machines were, was on the third floor so up we went. We found the gashupon machines easily and had a lot of fun browsing and deciding which ones to play. They had a very good selection, from random things like tiny food and robots to well-known IPs like Disney, Pokemon and Harry Potter, to more cultural and touristy options related to Kyoto. If it was brightly-coloured, made of plastic and essentially pointless they had a gashupon machine for it - we were absolutely delighted. The only IP they didn't have, and we never found one in any of the places we visited, was a Ghibli gashupon. Shame!




After browsing every machine, we eventually decided which ones we wanted to play. I decided on one dispensing Harry Potter pins (I ended up with a Voldemort one - boo!) and another with little plastic models of Kyoto cultural sites. I got the silver temple Ginkakuji, which sadly is one of the few places in Kyoto we didn’t visit.




Bex played another Kyoto tourist sites machine, hoping to get a maiko, but instead winning some weird Kyoto vegetables. She was not pleased! After that, she played a Toy Story 4 machine and won a tiny little mini-Toy Story 4 gashupon. This was one of the best things either of us won from a gashupon machine the whole trip. It really works!



After that, we wandered round the toy department a bit. As usual, it was very nostalgic, with a massive Sylvanian Families section and a very impressive lego section.







In the end, we got carried away and decided to get a couple of Disney lego minifigures from the lucky dip. I got a black and white Minnie - so cute - but Bex didn't get so lucky, ending up with Jafar. All in all, it was an amazing store, and we had real fun being big kids that evening.

It was after 20:30 when we left the store and I was starving. Bex wasn't so we decided to save money and go to the 7-Eleven again, as we knew we’d find some good stuff to eat there, and it was on the way back to the hotel. I bought some yummy fried chicken and a chiffon cake and Bex got a nice cookie, as she wasn’t very hungry. The chiffon cake was amazing - I'd never had one before. We watched more Stranger Things while we ate and eventually went to bed at about midnight.

Today’s step count was 20,300 - ouch!

Thanks for reading everybody, and particularly thanks to those of you who take the time to comment - it's lovely to hear from you.

Bye my friends, see you next time!

[Mamie Baldwin]

I am loving your trippie, so much detail and info in each post. Thanks for sharing.

[Tinkermom]

Oh my those deer really were everywhere!

And that store with the gashupon, just WOW

[rachelhelen82]

What a fantastic day! 😊

[AntonyJ]

Salty lychee drink, loved that too and buy it now in uk !

[mintybadger]

💜 this. Never seen so many sylvanians. My kids would go crazy for those gashupon machines

[Gr8WideSomewher]

Originally Posted by Mamie Baldwin

I am loving your trippie, so much detail and info in each post. Thanks for sharing.

See more...

Thank you Unfortunately, that comes with extremely long waits between each post, but the end is now in sight!

Thanks for reading and commenting

[Gr8WideSomewher]

Originally Posted by Tinkermom

Oh my those deer really were everywhere!

And that store with the gashupon, just WOW

See more...

Yeah, you definitely get the sense that Nara belongs to the deer; they just allow the humans to live there.

Gashupon are my kryptonite now!

[Gr8WideSomewher]

Originally Posted by rachelhelen82

What a fantastic day! 😊

See more...

It was awesome - thanks for reading!