What you probably expect a little less is hinted at by the fact that I went in early March, when their Omizutori festival is going on.
So, I got there around 10:30 this morning after about a 70 to 80 minute train ride. When I got off the bus at Nara park, I was dumbfounded, there are deer literally everywhere. The traffic has to just wing it at intersections, because the deer don't know when to wait .. they just go ahead and cross. They sell little crackers to feed them for 150 yen, and if you ever come here, buy it, and then quickly and stealthily put it in your pocket, or the greedy deer that hang out next to the souvenir shops will start head-butting you for them.
So freakin' cute
Yes, those are my feet .. and yes, this was adorable
The first thing I did was go see 東大寺 (todaiji) which was enormous. There's a huge statue of Buddha in the middle, and other statues surrounding it.
Here's the gate leading to Todaiji
And the reception committee
This statue is just in the gateway .. I'm not even up to the actual temple yet
One of the "small" statues next to the middle giant one
(There are plenty more pictures from Todaiji, but you'll have to click through one of these and just browse my collection on Flickr)
Oh, and after I left Todaiji, I had some dango (this one was a skewer with balls of mochi on it dipped in a teriyaki-ish sauce). The sauce immediately dripped onto my shoes, but not more than 5 seconds passed before a deer was there licking it off my feet. Again, customer service in Japan is awesome =)
For the rest of the day I just wandered around. I found a quaint little tea house in the middle of the park with big back yard with tables. I had some 甘酒 (amazake .. or sweet sake), which was a bowl of sweet rice gruel, and if there was any alcohol in there, I couldn't taste it.
I found a somewhat secluded area where a bunch of deer were taking a break, and I decided to join in. They welcomed me by not running away, and I noticed there were a couple of bucks mixed in (with antlers about a foot long or so). I felt like a little kid doing it, but asked someone passing by "What are those things on it's head called?", and apparently the Japanese word for antlers is つの or tsuno. A little later, the deer closest to me got up and came up to me, sniffed the book I was reading, tried to take a bite of it, and then let me scratch around his neck and ears. It was really sweet.
A little later, it was getting close to time for them to start part of the Omizutori that they do every evening starting at the beginning of March called お松明(otaimatsu .. which means (pine) torch), so I headed over to the building called 二月堂 (nigatsudo, or the place of the second moon / month), and there's a little restaurant there. I went inside, and everybody just sits at long tables, so I ended up sitting amongst a bunch of Japanese people and having a dish they call 木の葉 (which I guessed correctly as being kinoba .. or leaf of tree). Then I had a new food I'd never had before called 白玉ざんぜい (shirotama zanzei, or white ball zanzei), which was just a bowl of sweet red beans made into a kind of soup with three balls of what I'm pretty sure were mochi. Really delicious.
Oh, and while I was in there, the waitress said that my Japanese was really good =)
Then it was about 2 and a half hours before Otaimatsu, so I went out and grabbed a spot on the lawn in front of Nigatsudo. I ended up sitting next to this really nice Japanese couple. The lady offered me a piece of paper to sit on (so that my pants didn't get dirty). She said "It's a little small" not expecting me to understand, but I responded, "It's perfect, thanks" (all in Japanese, of course). So we actually had a really simple (and slow) conversation for the next couple of hours while we waited. It was soooooo awesome. Seeing Otaimatsu was a first for both of us. She said she had seen it on TV, but never actually come before. I told them about my trip, and found out that they're from a place south of Osaka that starts with a "W" .. I can't believe I forgot it already .. I'll look into it a little later.
It started to get really crowded. Good thing I showed up a couple of hours early
Then, it got dark and they started. They have 10 long poles with big hunks of pine or cedar needles attached to the end.
They light them and carry them up onto the balcony and shake them to drop the ashes on to the ground. The people in the front row get showered with ash and embers .. it's crazy.
And here's a video of the first torch coming out and getting run across the balcony
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