Nara and Kobe

This week on my days off I decided to check out two different nearby cities, Nara to the east and Kobe to the west. Both were close enough for easy day trips without much planning ahead required. On Tuesday we went to Nara, known primarily for the wild deer that are basically everywhere.

At the train station

We were told we'd find the deer in the park, but even before we reached the park we saw them walking around

They seemed friendly...but looks can be deceiving

There were little booths selling some sort of crackers for 150 yen a bunch to feed to the deer. The deer were smart and hung around close to the booths so they could pounce on the tourist idiots like us as soon we bought crackers. I had this vision in my head of the deer slowly and gently approaching as I fed them out of my palm, but instead a whole herd of them immediately began to surround and chase me, even nipping me in the butt a couple times if I wasn't feeding them as quickly as they wanted. This picture is of Jordyn literally running away from them after throwing the rest of her crackers to the ground in a panic. From buying the crackers, it took all of sixty seconds for us to ditch all our food and get the eff away from these vicious monsters.

BUT THEY LOOK SO CUTE

Ahhh so cute, okay all is forgiven

They were actually everywhere

We made our way up a path toward the Todaiji Temple

This was just the main gate, an impressive structure by itself

Mostly because of these huge, awesome wood statues

This is the Great Buddha Hall. It was enormous and beautiful. However there was an entrance fee to go inside, and we weren't really feeling that, so we just admired it from afar. Maybe next time.

Tomato-flavored shaved ice? Oh, Japan. What even even.

We then went to check out more of the sights in the park

A sign warning about the deer's violent tendencies. Didn't see this until it was too late.

The paths were lined with these beautiful old stone posts with paper lanterns inside

Josh stopped to buy some water at a place that also sold deer food, and when he turned around BOOM guess who's there

This woman was drying some traditional Japanese calligraphy she just paid to have done at the shrine

Throw in a coin, ring the bell, then put hands together and bow. I think that's how it went, though I might be missing more steps/bows

Josh bought a small wish candle to light and set in a little box near the shrine

On the way back to the Nara train station we stopped for some late lunch in the town's small shopping district, which looked like Shinsaibashi Jr.

Baby Face Planet's

$25 of ice cream

At the train station these monks were humming and handing out little things that turned out to be bandaids. Go figure.

We caught a glorious sunset on the train home

The next day Jordyn and I headed back on the train, this time to Kobe

We didn't actually take this train, but it looked cool

We originally wanted to go to a beach but realized that day that it was way farther away than we thought, so we brought our swimsuits and towels to Kobe and took the path on the right of this map up to Nunobiki Falls, hoping we'd be able to take a dip and lie out by the waterfall for a while.

The first small waterfall wasn't accessible, but it was pretty. We stayed hopeful about the larger waterfall that was bit farther into the forest

Aw, shucks. Again, it was gorgeous, but not quite what we had in mind for our beach day.

Instead we headed to the bottom of the mountain to take the ropeway up the herb gardens

At the top there was a cute, oddly German-themed area with food and shops

Fresh herbs for sale

The gardens also had a bee colony and had honey for sale

The nicer restaurant was closed but we were able to eat at this little food stand

"What a so tasty!"

At that point we were pretty tired and headed back home to Osaka. I certainly didn't see all there was to see in either Nara or Kobe, but both days were fun and relaxing and gave me a good sense of each of the cities.

One of the convenience stores close to home actually sells Blue Moon by the bottle! Japanese beers like Asahi, Kirin, and Sapporo don't reeeeally do it for me, so I was so relieved to find these! Including tax they're a little over 350 yen a bottle. Not great compared to buying a six pack at home but a good deal compared to getting a pint at a restaurant, so I'll take it!

This week in Odd Japanese Flavors of Western Snacks: Mango Ritz Bitz Sandwiches! The first one or two bites were like "Whaaaa?!?" but then I was into them. Would recommend!