One of the reasons why I love that I live in Osaka is that it is so centrally located. If you look on a map of Japan, Osaka is practically smack dab in the middle. This makes it easy and convenient to access other cities throughout Japan!
About 45 minutes to the East of Osaka is a city called Nara. Nara was the capital of Japan for the better part of 700’s. In a few words, I’d sum up my impression of this city as beautiful, peaceful, old world, and DEER.
Nara has a natural beauty about it that I had not yet seen in Osaka. There are trees and land sprawling in all directions, giving it the feel of a gigantic park. There are still plenty of restaurants and shops, especially if you are near the train/subway station, but these businesses have not taken over the entire city.
I visited Nara with a group of ECC teachers. It was a national holiday in Japan, National Foundation Day! Needless to say, there were loads of people out and about in Nara. Yet, despite the crowd, I never once felt packed in like a sardine, like I normally would when visiting, say, Universal Studios on a U.S. holiday. The whole day remained very laid back and peaceful!
Many people have two ideas of Japan. The first one is that Japan is very high-tech, modern, and sophisticated. The second is that Japan is very traditional, attributing to an old world feel. Living in Osaka, I can say that the city leans towards the high-tech, modern concept right off the bat! However, I’m beginning to realize more and more that there are still so many things that Osaka still does in a traditional, “old school” way. When exploring Nara, I experienced much more of that old world feel. There were several temples and shrines, which had that beautiful architecture I had only previously seen in pictures and videos.
And finally, the deer! Oh my. I had heard from at least a dozen people about these famous Nara deer, yet I still couldn’t believe it until I witnessed them myself. As soon as I had walked five minutes outside of the train station, there they were. Deer everywhere! You could walk right up to them, pet them, feed them, take selfies with them, you name it. It was obvious they were use to people. They were smart, too. Especially the hungry ones! I bought crackers from a street vendor and was carrying them in my purse. Whenever I’d bend down to give a deer one cracker, he/she would get greedy and try and steal the rest out of my purse. In the picture below, you can see me trying to get a picture with the deer, while mama deer tries to get into my purse. Sneaky sneaky!
Visiting Nara was such fun! Not even an hour commute and I felt like I was in a different world completely. I look forward to visiting again, especially when the cherry blossoms are in bloom.
Below are some photos of my Nara trip. Enjoy! 🙂
When You Wander 