We spent the afternoon in Nara, on the return trip to Kyoto from Koyasan. Nara is a very popular tourist destination, famous for the deer roaming nearby the many temples. This was the biggest tourist crowd we had seen in the whole trip. Yes, there are many tourists in Tokyo and Kyoto, but there are many more Japanese people so you don't notice the tourism so much.
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The temples, parks and deer in Nara lie about 20-30 minutes walk from the JR train station. Signage is clear upon exiting the station, and it's pretty much a straight shot down the main road to reach the parks. It takes a bit of wondering around to see all that Nara has to offer, but I found the further we walked into the complex of temples the prettier it became.
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| Nara is like a regular city... except with deer and stuff. |
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| A stroll through the forest to a temple |
The deer themselves, cute as deer can be, are fed often by people. So if you have food, they can become aggressive - we only saw this behaviour with people who had started actively feeding the deer. You can get relatively close to the deer without offering them food, but I wouldn't be so sure about patting them - they look a bit mangy, many have clumps of fur missing from their coats.
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| Feed the deer too much and they might try to eat you... and watch your bag and pockets! |
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| There's also lots of pretty temples |
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| Temples AND deer, what more could you want? |
In the grand scheme of things, Nara is an easy half- or full-day trip from Kyoto, and is nice to see when you have that extra day for convenience sake, or if you really love to see the deer. Beyond that, Hiroshima, Kobe, or Osaka are probably better choices for day trips from Kyoto.
I've seen Hiroshima as a day trip from Kyoto on a previous trip. It is a bit far on the train, and if there's time it looks like a nice place to stay overnight. The Peace Memorial Museum and many monuments nearby engage you in a more recent part of Japanese history. The museum effectively shows the devastating consequences and aftermath of the nuclear bomb, and is a piece of history that everyone should see and learn from. The city itself is more modern and beautifully designed. But this trip wasn't about Hiroshima...
We got some groceries from a large supermarket in Nara JR station before returning to Kyoto. I must say, the fresh fruit in Japan is amazing. Strawberries were a bit on the pricey side - although not as expensive as I expected - they were the small, juicy variety of strawberries and not a single bruised one in the punnet. We couldn't help ourselves and ate them on the train home. I have since discovered how impolite it is to eat whilst on the move in Japan... luckily I'm white and they seem to tolerate foreigner ignorance with bemusement.
