Eeeeek. That’s the sound the lesser spotted Carol-Ann makes when excited. In this particular instance, the cause of the excitement were small deer. Eating biscuits out of her hands. These were in Nara. But first I’ve got to tell you about Inari (or Fushimi-Inari as its properly known as).
Inari was a 15 minute train ride from Kyoto. It’s home to 10,000 Torii gates that kind of form a tunnel up to a fox shrine at the top of a mountain. Its very impressive, however, the day we went it was also particularly warm and busy. Like really busy. It made getting good photos (ie without hundreds of other tourists in) pretty hard, but I think we managed a couple including some from some pretty impressive view points on the way up.
Our next stop was to be Nara national park. This was an hour further along the same train line. The next train was in 20 odd minutes so we grabbed some street food from outside the station whilst we waited. Once the train arrived we discovered it was a local train, rather than a rapid. Local trains stop at almost every stop, whereas the rapids only stop at the major stations. The local trains also have very limited seating - kind of like a subway.
Once we got to Nara, we grabbed a taxi from the station to the national park. As we drove along the roads it became clear how tame and friendly the deer were - they were everywhere. I doubt it’d be long before they started living in houses and working normal jobs!
When the taxi got to the national park (which also had a few shrines in) we got out and headed straight to one of the little feed stands - this was usually a little old lady who just sat there giving tourists special biscuits to feed to the deer for 150 Yen at a time. We bought 2 packs and Carol immediately was surrounded by 4 or 5 deer. That is when it happened. The eeeeeek moment. Even through the scarf, hat and sunglasses (it had cooled down now) you could see she was just a great big grin. Needless to say she went through her biscuits in a matter of seconds, the deer wanted more though and thought they’d sample some Jersey Carol - for some reason it wasn’t to their liking. Luckily for Carol, I still had my stash so I opened the packet and the deer turned their attention my way. After giving out all of the biscuits you were supposed to raise your hands with your palms open to show the deer you had no more - it worked and the wandered off.
We decided to wonder around and have a look at a couple of the shrines. We found the main one which was the largest wooden structure in Japan and housed a huge Buddha in it. Like massive. The repercussions if it decided to stand up and walk around would make Godzilla look like a telly tubby. Fortunately it didn’t.
Afterwards we decided it was time to head home, but not before buying another pack of biscuits for the deer. We split the pack into 2 and again Carol went through hers like it was.. well biscuits. I tried to pick out a tiny deer that clearly looked attention deprived and managed to sneak it a couple before the other bigger deer took over the show. Biscuited out, we headed home.
