Nara is absolutely one of the most-tourist heavy sites you will go to in Japan. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go there. It’s worth it to see the famous deer and some of the most beautiful shrines and temples in the country.

Given the hot weather, it would have made more sense to visit Nara in the morning, but because it was the day after the concert, we let our daughter sleep in. I went to Osaka Castle in the morning, as discussed in a previous post, and we ended up heading to Nara around 11:30am. My original plan was to take the tourist bus up Wakakusayama Hill, but I realized that my wife would probably find that a bit boring and would rather just see the deer.

Rather than use our JR Train Passes and go to the JR-Nara station, we again saved my wife some walking and took the metro from the hotel to Namba station and then the Kintetsu line, another private train company, to Kintetsu-Nara station, much closer to the deer park and the other tourist spots. It cost around $5 per person using our SUICA cards. On arrival in Nara, we took a right outside the station and walked toward the deer park.

It didn’t take very long to reach the deer. They were everywhere.

Our daughter bought some deer “crackers” from one of the stalls in the park and fed the deer. She was mobbed by hungry deer.

After we spent some time mostly watching the deer harass other tourists for food, we walked on toward the Todai-ji Temple. There were still lots of deer around, but less aggressive the further we got from the main part of the deer park.

My wife walked as far as the temple entrance and decided to wait for us in the shade. My daughter and I went to the temple and checked out the giant buddha there.

By this point, we were baking in the heat so despite the many other temples and shrines in Nara, we decided to head back toward the station. We made a brief stop at the covered shopping street near the station before getting the train back to Osaka.

Despite how crowded it gets, Nara is worth visiting for the deer and the other sites there. I would love to go back in cooler weather and spend some more time there.

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