APR 11, Japan Visit: sidetrip to Nara

Nara is a smaller city about an hour's bus ride from Kyoto or Osaka. Its claim to tourist fame is a giant statue of Buddha in a temple there, but also a concentration of sika deer (shika in Japanese) in the central temple-park area. Tourists are encouraged to feed these smug denizens, and there are lots of cute interactions between local toddlers and the animals (although the deer, actually a species of elk, are present throughout the country, we saw no deer elsewhere in Japan). Visitors are warned that the males become aggressive at times in their eagerness for shika-senbei, deer-crackers, and have occasionally bitten tourists. For visitor safety, the antlers of male deer in the park are removed yearly. On the other hand, many of the deer, like the shika-san shown here, have learned to bow as part of ceremonially charming potential food-donors.

(To view the final pictures in brief video format, click on the central arrow, then immediately on the silver arrow at the upper left of the enlargement.)

Readers might like to view the above photo in a wider context by reviewing our collection of December 31, 2024, "Talking Heads". 

the Daibutsu (Great Buddha),
 16m high, made of over 400 tonnes of bronze, 160 Kg of gold, unveiled in 732.

 

 

TODAY'S POEM (senryu  *) 

Honorable friend:

please accept shika-sensei 

(animal crackers).

Giorgio Coniglio

 

* learn more HERE about senryu, a term that designates a lesser-known Japanese short poem that shares the physical characteristics of haiku (nominally 17 'on' / syllables in three non-rhyming lines), but deals in a satiric or humorous way with human foibles rather than with Nature. 

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