Nara Park, Japanese Deer Park and Todai-ji temple 03-29-2016

Nara Park, also known as the Japanese Deer Park and home to the Todai-ji temple.

With over 1200 wild Sika deer roaming the grounds of the park, Nara park, or The Japanese Deer Park provides a rare opportunity to actually get close enough to pet a wild deer as well as see the Todai-ji temple.  But be careful they can get aggressive when they figure out you have food.

When you visit Nara park from the road it appears just like any other park that you might encounter with trees, wide open spaces and traditional Japanese buildings and architecture.  You even will start to see the occasional deer in the open grassy areas as you approach the parking area.  Then as you walk over to the entrance to the park you start to notice another deer, then 2, then 40 or more.

While the deer here are not scared of humans at all they will come right up to you and let you pet them like a cat.  It’s sort of surreal, you can smell the musky smell of them and their coat of hair is very stiff and coarse.  They are even very affectionate as you walk amongst them.  Most are younger with small budding horns and a youthful curiosity.  But some are old souls that have been there a while and are no longer impressed by human interaction.  I found this particular doe sitting by herself in the sun.  I suspect she is blind due to the almost opaque cloudiness of her eyes.

As friendly as they are you’d think that they would almost hop in your car and just go home with you.  The Sika deer will actually follow you around like a puppy, provided you have food that is.  They will even gang up on you trying to get the crackers [Shika-senbei] that the vendors have for sale at the park.  You can buy a package of about 20 crackers to feed to the deer while there.  I can see why the deer like them, they taste a little like a graham cracker.

However there is a dark side to these seemingly innocuous forest dwellers that will follow you around like puppies.  Once they figure out that you have bought crackers from the vendors they will surround you trying to get them from you.  While they jostle and push each other for position eventually it start to get a little out of hand.  They will get rather aggressive, I saw another tourist get knocked down by a deer trying to get the crackers she was holding.  Sharon was no stranger to this either, one of the little furry aggressors actually bit her on the butt when she didn’t give him a cracker.

Thus the warning signs are worth paying attention to in The Deer Park.  You don’t think that these docile little guys would be as mean as they are portrayed in the warning signs.  But make no mistake that they will become aggressive.

While we were there a ship building was in progress.  I’m not sure what the purpose of the build was but it had something to do with the cultural significance of Nara Japan.

Moving on past the deer and boat building there is the entrance to the Todaiji temple.  This is the Hall of the Great Buddha.  As you enter the gates of the inn courtyard of the temple you are greeted by 2 large statues that are the protectors of Buddha.

After you pass the guardians you enter the inner courtyard that houses the Temple of the Great Buddha.  The courtyard is quite expansive and exquisitely manicured and maintained.  It really is difficult to see how this was constructed so very long ago, not to mention maintained during that time.

Founded in the early 8th century it’s difficult to comprehend the amount of work that it took to construct not only the temple building itself but the bronze Buddha statue that is housed within.  The temple not only houses the worlds largest Buddha statue but was once one of the seven great temples in Nara Japan at the Japanese Deer Park.

As you walk toward the temple you really start to grasp the true immensity of it’s construction.  It’s just amazing that something like this was started early in the 8th century when there were no machines to be used for the construction of such a massive building.  The building is easily awe inspiring as it stands today but what’s more impressive is that it’s actually 30% smaller than it originally was due to being rebuilt after fire twice.  At the time of it’s initial construction it was second only in size to the great pyramids in Egypt.

Once inside the Todai-ji you can really appreciate just how big the bronze casting of the Buddha actually is.  The statue weighs in at 500 tonnes and took over 2.6 million people to construct along with the Todai-ji temple that houses it and the grounds surrounding the temple.

On either side of the Buddha statue are guardian statues that were constructed as protectors of the Buddha.  They are not nearly as grand as the Buddha itself but they do definitely look menacing.

Truly the Todai-ji temple is a testament to the tenacity of humans and their drive to achieve great works of art and construction.  Just to think that in the early 8th century [728AD] the construction of the statue, temple, and grounds was begun, requiring 2.6 million people in support of the project as well as being rebuilt 2 times due to fire it just amazing.