Deer Food
Trip Start
Sep 10, 2008
1
28
71
Trip End
Sep 03, 2009
Nara,
Kinki,
Japan
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Onigiri consist of a rice ball made with very sticky rice and wrapped up with seaweed, presented in a chunky triangular shape. In the centre there is a filling, sometimes the filling is very tasty, such as salmon, chicken or seaweed. Sometimes the filling is very, very bad, such as salmon roe (huge red jelly-like fish eggs), smaller fish eggs which taste really fishy, not great when you don`t like seafood that much, or by far the worst being the fermented bean paste that makes even the rice taste like it has actually not only gone off but been left to rot for years
Nara Pagoda
. Most of the packets are at least colour-coded, so you have some way of at least hazarding a guess at what might be contained, but of course the one she handed me was only labeled in kanji (Japanese script). Unless you are in the know, unwrapping the things can be a mission in itself, as the plastic separates the seaweed covering from the rice and you have to pull away from two corners, but luckily someone showed me this the first one I had. It was only when I took my first bite into the rice that it occurred to me that I had no idea what was inside, which could be disastrous as the lady was watching me intently whilst I ate and my reaction when I hit the core could be to vomit! Tentatively I ate the rice, delaying the inevitable hitting of the core until I was left with no choice but to go for it. I was lucky, it was tuna. Once I had eaten, the lady asked to take my photo, and then another one with her with me, presumably so she could show her friends back home. Coming through heavy snow we soon reached Nara.Nara, a city famous for its deers as much as its temples. Walking up the main street, accompanied the whole way by traditional Japanese music played through speakers you reach a large park where the temples are situated. It is here that hundreds of cute (and rather hungry it would seem) deers come to greet you. Perhaps even more entertaining than the fact you can stroke them (but only the ones that look clean, some people have become seriously ill after picking up tics from them, unsurprisingly something that the tourism board doesn't advertise), is watching the other visitors stroke them.
For example, a group of foreign tourists come along. A few of the cute deer (group A) come up to the tourists to be stroked, presumably hoping that the said tourists possess some of the deer food in the form of crackers which is provided by the many shops surrounding the temples
Nara 1
. Whilst the tourists are distracted by stroking the deer and fumbling about to find some money to buy some food, deer group B enters from behind and starts getting its fill of the paper bag or map straight from the hands of the tourist. The tourist group realise and then more often than not, run away screaming, much to the amusement of the other surrounding visitors, and no doubt the deer, who sedately look around for their next target.I saw one deer terrorising a foreign visitor by trying to eat his guidebook. The deer don't seem to be that fussy about what sort of paper it is they eat, although they do seem to have a preference to the more useful and important pieces of paper, such as the bottom of your paper bag, or the centre of your map.
Watching the foreign tourists with the deer is one thing, but watching the Japanese themselves with the deer brings it to whole new levels of hilarity. If you have ever seen Japanese TV, or saw Lost in Translation (yes I keep mentioning it, but its a good film, and this is relevant!) where a woman is sent to Bill Murray's room and then proceeds to roll around the floor by herself, then you may have realised that the Japanese can sometimes react disproportionally to the stimulus. In this case, I spent a good hour or so on and off, watching deer, very calmly and slowly following screaming Japanese children holding crackers and running away (in circles)
Nara Pagoda 2
. The children would then pass the food to the adults, and sure enough, the deer would now, very slowly, very calmly follow round an adult who was running and screaming, even more than the child was, as if their life depended on it. Not once did I see a deer jump up, or indeed, break into so much as a trot, and yet I saw several adults running away screaming as if the deer were about to eat them. Had it been warmer, I would have stayed to watch all day.Once you`ve tired of playing with and photographing the the deers and conversing about how cute they are, you c can then pop into one of the many surrounding little shops and buy your own deer souvenirs. If the cuddly toy or traditional phone dangly charm isn`t enough for you, you can even a piece of deer home with you to clean your windows with in the form of a chamois leather. Alternatively, you can try to eat a whole one in one of the restaurants.
Anyway, the real reason people come to Nara (although the deer themselves surely justify the journey, where else can you see a deer standing in a shop or trying to get a taxi?) is to see some of the many temples. Tôdai-ji is the world's largest wooden building, and as impressive as it is, the huge Buddha contained within sometimes overshadows this. Paying the usual 600 yen entrance fee (it must suck if you are a Buddhist and have to pay just to get into the temple so you can pray), the usual trudge around the temple began. What was perhaps, even more unusual about this temple is the fact you can actually take photographs inside. The temple itself was very impressive, however, it was certainly not a place to come for peace, considering the huge crowds wondering round it everyday.
