
Japan
Kyoto: Nara
We took a day trip on the train from Kyoto to Nara, which is Japan’s first permanent capital, so obviously it has a lot of history. Just before leaving for our holiday, we had caught a BBC documentary on Japan which mentioned Nara and its famous ‘bowing deer’, so we had to go over and have a look!
Lo and behold, when we arrived at Nara park, lots of deer! The warning sign is quite funny too ð

Apart from deer, Nara Park is also full of historical buildings which are part of the KÅfuku-ji (a Buddhist temple). The temple comprises the Eastern Golden Hall (TÅ-kondÅ) and five-story pagoda (GojÅ«-no-tÅ)…



…the Southern Octagonal Hall (Nan’endÅ), which I think is a beautiful building…


…and smaller three-story pagoda (SanjÅ«-no-tÅ).

The highlight though, I must say, were the deer. You could buy deer biscuits from stalls around the park, and if you bow to them, they will bow back for a biscuit. Other people around us didn’t seem to be aware of this, then they started copying us ð

Heading back to Kyoto, we came across these guys at Nara train station. I had no idea what was going on at the time, but after passing the text through a translator after the fact, found out that the banner they are holding says “Welcome to Nara” – which makes perfect sense!
