Nara – Japanese Deer Country

A little while ago I went backpacking in Japan with my summer roommate Lindsay. We spent about two weeks taking the shinkansen up and down Japan, from Tokyo to Miyajima. Anyway, we took 234,379,002* pictures during the trip and I’d forgotten about them… UNTIL NOW!!!! I thought it’d be fun to do a series of posts about some of the highlights of the trip. Unfortunately it was so long ago that I can’t remember in what order we went to places or even what some of the places are. Thus, I have committed to writing haphazardly and in no particular order. Unless otherwise noted, all pictures were taken by either myself or Lindsay. To begin, we will take a look at Japanese deer.

In Japan, tame deer like to hang out around temples and parks.

Cute, right? … WRONG!!!

Japanese deer are vicious, vicious man-eating monsters!! Why are Japanese deer particularly ferocious (more ferocious than American man-eating deer)? Because of circular goods spawned from the darkest depths of human culinary achievement: deer biscuits.

Hawked near any major temple or park, shika sembei (or deer biscuits) are circular cookies that are apparently ridiculously delicious to deer. So delicious that the deer start trying to eat anything that might even remotely be a biscuit.

Exhibit 1: I am at Todaiji (a temple in Nara) with my map (yellow thing tucked in armpit)**. Deer approaches.

View from a different angle:

I manage to get my map away from the deer, only to have a deer snatch it away from behind me. I sadly watch as said deer proceeds to try and eat my map.

Having fake biscuits is pretty bad, but check out what happens when you have real biscuits:

So let this be a lesson to you, weary traveler – when in Japan, beware of the deer!

Next post we’ll talk about Todaiji, home of Japan’s largest buddha!

* Number is entirely made-up.

** Do not judge me for putting my map in my armpit. I needed both hands free to fight off the deer.

*** Just in case you’re curious, the sign says that deer with antlers or deer whose antlers have been cut off are dangerous. Because they eat people. (Okay I added the last part). But seriously.

~ by Sophia on May 11, 2008.