The Nara Deer

While at the Todaiji Temple, the girls had the opportunity to pet the tame deer that are indigenous to the area.  The Shinto Temple (also in the same area) has a legend that the Shinto god road into Nara on a deer.  The people of the area have cared for the deer for so many years that they became tame and freely wander the park. The deer are extremely cute and will bow to you in hopes of receiving food. Watch the videos below and you can see how assertive the deer become when they know you have food. The second video shows the bowing deer.  

The perils of feeding deer is that they like to nip at you when you don't feed them fast enough.  Kristie actually got bit a couple of times in the leg.

Kasuga-Taisha (Shinto shrine) founded in 768 A.D. and rebuild several times over the centuries.  It is the family shrine of the Fujiwara family and is known for it's variety of lanterns (bronze, stone, etc.)  Twice a year the lanterns in the picture below are actually lit.  If you aren't familiar with these religions, Shinto is the original religion of Japan.  Buddhism was introduced to the Japanese through the influence of India and China. The tour guide did a great job of explaining the differences between the religions and how the influence of the Chinese impacted Japanese culture.  For example, the written words/characters used in Kanji (con-gee) are actually Chinese.  There are over 50,000 characters.  The average Japanese student will know 3000 characters by the time they graduate from high school.  Japanese have introduced additional characters/letters (a little over 40) as well.  Marc knew 500 characters during his exchange year. 

This tour was really amazing.  During the drive from Nara, we were able to see the countryside, rice fields, and neighborhoods.  In Chicago, we will see car lifts in small city parking lots.  Here, you see those lifts in home garages as they try to conserve space.  Kristie actually saw a bike lift as well.  Upon return to Osaka, we found a Japanese style Italian restaurant.  Yummy spaghetti and dessert. It was a sweet end to the day!