Dear God!!! Deer and gods...........make me smile

Have you ever heard of Nara Japan?   Before I came to Japan as a visitor, I hadn't.   Nara was the capital of Japan before the USA was a twinkle in her forefather's eyes and before a lot of forefathers were a twinkle in...well, you get the point.   Nara celebrated it's 1300th anniversary just a few years ago.  This is the home of the largest housed Buddha and several other very large warrior statues.  

 So many of the deer seemed almost comotose.   I found out later

they had been slightly anesthetized because their antlers had been removed

that day.

The park is home to hundreds of freely roaming deer. Considered in Shinto to be messengers of the gods, Nara's nearly 1200 deer have become a symbol of the city and have been designated a natural treasure. 

 Greedy little buggers.

Like the deer on Miyajima, Nara's deer are surprisingly tame, although they can be rather aggressive if they think you will feed them. Deer crackers are for sale around the park, and some deer have learned to bow to visitors asking to be fed.

 I don't want this guy to be angry at me.

Remember these statues are over 1300 years old.

 Gigantic!!

The Great Buddha Hall is the largest wooden buildling in the world and the Buddha housed within is the largest bronze statue of the Buddha Vairocana known in Japanese as Daibutsu.  It is a listed UNESCO World Heritage Site as "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara", together with seven other sites including temples, shrines and places in the city of Nara.

 They missed this little guy!! 

The entire park is part of the experience.   Thick with tall, old trees, you couldn't help but gape at the beauty.

 For a small country, there are some really large things here.

Traditional dress.