Joan and Annie under attack

The Nara group has planned our trip so well, starting from the more simple activities and working up from there.  Today was our last day in Nara, and we went to Nara’s headline attraction — Nara Park.  Nara Park is huge — about 1.5 times as large as Central Park — and has much to see.  We barely scratched the surface in our day here, so it’s on the list to return to someday.

The park is perhaps most famous for its many, many deer.  There is also a shrine in the park, and based on an ancient legend, the deer are seen as divine messengers.  They have been protected in this park for over 1300 years, and have become very tame.  Yoshi, the club member who was our guide in the park, told us that the deer have been studied, and have different DNA than regular wild deer.  Tourists come to the park to feed the deer special deer crackers, but one of our hosts kindly took the time to gather each of us a large bag of acorns to use as deer food.  Amazingly, the deer have learned to bow to you when asking for food.  It’s very cute — until you come upon one of the few aggressive deer who doesn’t want to take no for an answer.  Then you have to make a quick retreat before your acorn bag is snatched from your hand.

The park is also home to multiple World Heritage sites, including the amazing Todaiji Temple.  As you approach the temple, there is a central stone path, flanked by a

Todaiji Temple with striped stone path

strip of different stone on either size, with another strip beyond that, then the stone of the main plaza.  Yoshi told us that the stone was designed to represent the spread of Buddhism.  The central path is stone from India; the next layer is from China; the one beyond that Korea; and the main plaza stone is from Japan.

The main building is huge, with soaring ceilings, to accommodate multiple enormous statues, including a huge golden Buddha. Until recently it was the largest wooden building in the world — but prior to its destruction by fire a few hundred years ago, it was 1.5 times larger!  Yoshi led us through and explained the significance of all the different elements.  At the base of one of the pillars is a hole that is the same size as the giant Buddha’s nostril.  You can squeeze through it for good luck.  None of us attempted this feat, but we saw many schoolchildren doing it.

Like many of the temples and shrines we’ve visited, the pathways of the park are lined with old stone lanterns, statues, and attractive vegetation.  It was funny to see the omnipresent deer wandering freely amongst the lanterns and Torii gates.  We were lucky enough to see one wobbly newborn deer, possibly born that day.  The deer here are fairly small already, so this baby was very tiny.

For lunch we were provided with another classic Japanese experience — the bento box. In the kind of

attention to detail that is common here, the chopsticks were wrapped in a piece of beautiful folded origami paper.  (We’re all getting quite good at using chopsticks!  No forks here.) It was quite a feast and most of us couldn’t finish them.

After the park we did a little shopping then refreshed ourselves with lemonade and iced lattes at a nearby cafe.  (It was a pretty hot day.  Even though the thermometer only registers in the seventies, we’ve found the “real feel” to be much hotter here.)  When we got home, Non said we had 30 minutes until leaving for dinner.  I was thinking about a bit of a rest and cleaning up from the day, but not five minutes later she was calling me to head out.  Toko and her husband had arrived in a bright pink car to ferry us to the farewell dinner.

At the house where the dinner was being held, preparations were in full swing by those members who hadn’t gone to the park.  They had set up stations so we could try rolling our own sushi, and also making some kind of fried balls involving octopus.  (At least, they were supposed to involve octopus.  Apparently the store was out of octopus, so some other kind of fish was substituted instead.  There was much eating and drinking, a few tears, and gratitude and invitations for the Japanese to visit New Hampshire.  We would love to be able to show them a fraction of the hospitality they’ve shown us.