Deer are a lot squeakier than initially imagined.
I guess I always thought of them as silent woodland sprites, but either I’ve been wrong my whole life, or these deer are just different.
I’m probably wrong, but also these deer are very different. I had heard of Nara before, seen pictures, thought about it as a concept, but I had failed to understand the scope of what it meant for a place to have so many deer that they’re the thing that it’s know for.
Do you know how many deer that is?
I don’t, but if I had to guess, it’s somewhere around a metric fuck ton. Almost as soon as we left the station and started towards the park, the deer appeared. They were using the sidewalk, just like everyone else, and were mingling in and out of the crowd, like seasoned locals.
And they give no fucks, like the monkeys and the fish and all the other wildlife we’ve encountered on this trip. I got close enough to see that they have those creepy rectangle pupils that all hoofed animals have. But they’re very chill and just roam.
Unless you have food.
The second you buy these crackers from a vender, the deer are on you. I watched people literally run and/or chuck the deer specific crackers away from themselves as a diversion to get away.
I’m not usually interested in getting attacked by a bunch of hungry hooved animals, but you only deer park once.
The crackers are, what I imagine, the deer equivalent of Passionfruit. And they’re sold by venders dotted all over the park that have these neat little metal boxes that lock shut so the deer can’t get in. I might have lied before when I said the second that you buy them, the deer are on you.
Sometimes it’s a few seconds before when you’re looking in your bag for exact change and the deer decides that it’s tired of waiting and your pasty ass seems like a nice equivalent to the crackers.
In layman’s terms, I got bit on the ass by a deer today.
It’s red and I’m sure I won’t get a disease from a deer at a park that is known for its deer and has heavy tourism that relies on them, so I’m trying to distract myself from thinking about that by thinking about what kind of super powers I could get from this instead (other than being really impatient for snacks, which is an ability I already have).
Feeding them is also no joke. When you first whip out the crackers, there are usually one or two deer that are already on you, which is a manageable unit of deer. And then, all of a sudden, there are five and they are all about mouth level with your exposed legs and you still can’t shake the Initial Deer Bite Trauma, so you just start passing them out as fast as you can and then hold your hands up in surrender when you’re done.
And then they disappear, like it never even happened.
Committing Hubris
Confronting reality
And then you might start thinking about buying another stack of crackers because you kind of blacked out and didn’t get to appreciate feeding deer.
Don’t think this. It’s the same thing the second time around.
Don’t get me wrong. The deer are rad and the whole place felt like humanity had let nature back in a little bit but. The deer are radder when they’re not trying to everything in and around your hands.
The real Brave Souls of the park are the venders of the Deer Crackers. They have to be extra strong because the deer know that the carts are a locus of cracker distribution. I watched one literally rub it’s head all over a vender, who was sitting down, arms crossed, and staring out into the distance. A pillar of strength.
I think the most entertaining part of this was that it must have been the entire Osaka prefecture’s field trip day to this park. And the only thing better than tourists vs. deer are school kids (and one teacher) vs. deer.
Besides getting bit, I also had a confrontation with a deer when I was trying to eat my own snack. I was fending it off with one hand and eating with the other. But in my one hand I had some plastic and I think the deer just assumes food=anything in hand. So it grabbed my plastic. I grabbed it back in the fastest display of reflexes I’ve shown since I quit sports. I was just astounded by the active pursuit of something that clearly did not smell or taste like food.
Also, a lot of the deer with antlers had been deantlered. But there was one who was skittish that had a full set. We hung out with him for a while because he was definitely not interested in eating anything besides the crackers, and even those were a little iffy to that man.
The sun set while we were there and all the lamps in the forest came on, which was really the time for my deer powers to manifest. Alas. We got back on the train after that. I really didn’t need to do deer park after dark, they’re sneaky enough during the day.
But the day was not done after Nara.
We decided to abandon our bougie hotel and move somewhere more economic. This meant that we had to move our luggage again (and that Marisa had to leave her beloved robe behind).
But before we did that, we decided to get dinner in Namba, which is slowly becoming synonymous with ‘black hole’ in my mind.
Takoyaki is great. I didn’t always think this, but now, as a totally mature 22 year old I can say I have a solid appreciation for it that 12 year old me did not (I had not been expecting a tentacle. I know better now).
Across the street from the takoyaki place was a Forever 21.
Please don’t judge me.
I’m weak.
Anyways, after spending too much time (3 hours. We spent 3 hours in there. This was my fault. I take responsibility. I could try to frame it better but I’ll just take the L for this one) it was 10:30 and the trains stop at 12. We still had to get back to our hotel, get our luggage, and figure out how to get to our Airbnb.
We ended up missing our stop, which, why not? So we got to have our second dramatic train platform run. This time we were joined by an older guy who was rocking jean on jean (I had bought a jean jacket and was also living the jean on jean life for transportation purposes. I felt like we understood each other. Jean on jean has power I didn’t understand until now). He thought he wasn’t going to make it and he slowed down but we held the door and waved him on and he slid in just in time. He waved good bye to us at our stop. I miss him. He looked like he had seen the world and had maybe been in a band that had almost been famous.
Despite our missed stop, we made it it to the hotel and to the area of the Airbnb without having the trains close on us.
I think Airbnb as a concept is awesome. What I think is even cooler is the way that some of the owners decide to tell you how to get there. It usually starts off with “get off at this station” which is straightforward, but evolves into pictures of the streets and vague instructions like “look for the red Vending Machine” and “turn at the awning”. My favorite part is what happens when you find the place: getting the keys.
In Bangkok, we had instructions to look under the cushion of a red chair. When we did as directed, there was an envelope with Marisa’s name on it. Here we had to use a key pad to get into the building. It gave no noise of confirmation, but slid open like a secret passage. After that, we found our apartment door, which had a combination lock on it. We put in the combo, and the little container on it popped open and there was a key inside. And then the door had two locks on it.
Sounds lame, felt cool.
Due to my Forever 21 void visit, I neglected dinner and was hungry. Google Maps said there was a ramen place literally across the street from our apartment. It was closed. Angst followed. A Family Mart was found. Everything was fine.
We stayed up late again talking. I know I’ve seen so much and gotten to have an amazing month of traversing, but I think one of the things I’ll miss most about this trip are my friends.
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