Rudolph the Brown Nosed Nara Deer

Christmas Eve was a blast! We started the day heading for Nara, a city to the south of Kyoto which was the ancient capital of Japan for a few decades in the 700's.

In addition to its Imperial past, Nara is known for the tame deer that wander freely throughout the city. Eric, Kathy, Chris and I all enjoyed buying some deer cookies and feeding our greedy little friends. :) A few of the bigger deer would even jump or get up on their hind legs to beat the smaller deer to the cookies.

In contrast to the summer of 2005 (the last time I was in Nara) most of the male deer did not have any antlers. I suspect this was due to seasonal antler shedding and it was definitely for the best since the young bucks were especially persistent about devouring the cookies. They licked Kathy's leg, bit our coats and even tried to eat my pocket all in pursuit of the delicious (?) "shika senbei."

After playing with the deer, we visited Kasuga Shrine. This shrine was really neat because the forest paths leading up to it are lined with literally thousands of stone lanterns. Once inside the Shrine's grounds, we found a wisteria arbor (which must be gorgeous in the springtime) and even more lanterns! The lanterns in the shrine were mostly bronze, not stone, but were equally beautiful.

Then, we moved on to the highlight of Nara... Todaiji Temple. This Buddhist temple is known for its GIGANTIC bronze statue of Buddha. I mean it, the statue is huge. For example, on our entrance tickets it said "Virocana Buddha: Height of Body: 48.91 ft, Length of Head 17.75 ft, Length of Eye, 3.34 ft, and Length of Ear, 8.33 ft. I think someone is justifiably proud of their huge national treasure. :)

Relating to this, one of the supporting posts in the Great Buddha Hall has a hole that has been bored through the base which, in theory is the same size as one of the Buddha's nostrils. A long line of visitors (mostly children) were crawling through the hole for luck and enlightenment. I wonder what you get blessed with if you get stuck in the hole?