So the city itself was wonderful. To me it felt more like a small town. The first thing I came upon was a small lake with litterally hundreds of turtles (as I found out later the abundance of animals in the city is what its known for among other monsterous things). There were so many. Next were the deer, again just piles of them. Small by comparison to the deer in WI, maybe a young buck's size, but almost all the males had a great rack of 6 points or more and the velvet was almost completely gone from the antlers. I heard that come fall there is a ceremony where the deer are de-horned and then the horns are sold (huge money I'm told). The main attraction is the deer and the buddha from what I can tell. The trick is you buy these flat bran cookies (taste like diet cookies probably really good for you) and you can then feed them to the deer. Of course the key is not letting the deer see you have the cookies because they can be sort of pushy when it gets right down to it. I saw a vendor get butted a few times, but apparently it's all normal, he just turned around and cuffed the deer as it was an unrulely child. At the moment I don't have any photos of what I was doing, but they will come.
After the deer we headed into the main temple where the world (at least I think) largest bronze statue is kept. It was a gigantic Buddha and it seemed to get larger the more you walked around it. There were many carved "guardians," around the buddha and at first I had this great feeling of Sinbad and the 7th seas where the statues might come alive. I asked Seth if he would be afraid of these guys or the Buddha (I hadn't seen the Buddha at that point) and he said, "you'll see." Boy was I unprepared for it.
As I wrote already I don't have any pictures of me yet, but at one point around the Buddha there is a pillar with a notch cut out of the bottom of it. This notch is the size of the Buddha's nostrils and it is considered good luck to climb through it. It is a very-VERY tight squeeze for me. I did it, but according to Seth who was taking the pictures, he heard a Japanese guy say, "No FU#Kn' way." in Japanese as I was starting the slide through. I felt like I might get stuck about 2/3 the way, but I just exhaled and managed to squirt on through.
After that a huge storm rolled in and trapped us in an underground section of the park for a bit, we ended up running out into the rain after waiting 20 minutes or so. It was a good run, but we were soaked in minutes. Running in flip-flops sucks. Some great lighting though really close too. I have to get a tripod and some better lenses for my camera (someday).
We took the train back to the city and found the car with a parking citation on it which was a 2 hr adventure that turned out painless. We ended the night dirty, stinking and exhausted with a gut full of food and a head full of memories. What a great time.
One of literally hundreds of tame deer that are running about the city grounds. This is the first one I saw so I didn't get too close since I didn't realize how tame they are..
a deer getting fresh with me..
I don't remember the Japanese word for this style of building, but I do remember that this giant wooden building was built in 730AD! The lantern in front of the picture is about the size of a person.
better than eating out of your hand..
Doesn't look very big in this picture, but just to give you some idea his nostril is big enough for me to climb through. He is BIG.
Through the buddha's nostril..I am reborn