Nara

Nara is about an hour's train ride from where we stayed in Kyoto, and is definitely worth the visit. I have no idea how it happened, but the whole town is overrun with these relatively small deer, known as Sika Deer who are supposedly messengers of the gods. They are pretty tame until you get food in your hand and they decide they want it.

One of these little guys ate Ben's map later in the day. He was looking at his map, and the bugger ran up and took a big chunk out of it, which also happened to be the region of that map that we needed.

These were the less tame deer, removed from the city and living in a park at the base of a mountain.
I wonder if they are tagged with microchips, it has been too long since I have had venison.
This is the entrance to Todai-ji Temple, the largest wooden structure in the world. It is said that more than 2,600,000 people were involved in the initial construction of the temple and great hall, but the population of Japan at the time was only somewhere between 5 and 6 million.
The present reconstruction of Todai-ji, finished in 1709, is 30% smaller than the original but still measures 187 feet long, 164ft wide and 160 feet tall. It also houses the largest cast bronze statue in the world. It weighs 550 tons and is 49.1 feet tall. When it was finished in 751, it had consumed most of Japan's bronze production for several years and had left the country almost bankrupt.



It is said that if you can squeeze through the hole in this pillar, you will have good luck for one year. Hopefully that is true, as the three of us all managed to get through.