Japan 2023 - Day 13

Today saw us taken an excursion from Kyoto to Nara to see the deer there. For they unfamiliar, they will bow to you. You bow to them, they bow back, you feed them. What they don’t necessarily tell you is that once the deer know you have food, they’re not going to simply stand around and wait for you to politely bow and feed them.

It quickly became apparent the deer were none to backward about giving you a hint you should be feeding them. The bite on the butt certainly wasn’t subtle! I quickly gave up on bowing and waiting for a return and simply fed them quickly to avoid further hints, be they nips, butts or simply having them grab the deer biscuit from my hand.

We spent awhile in the park and walked through to a temple where a very large buddha statue resides, though most of us didn’t pay the additional fee to go through and inspect them .

Rhianna turned out to be the deer-whisperer and certainly persisted with the feeding well past the point where the rest of us had given up being abused by the deer.

Having enjoyed our sushi lunch so much the previous day it was suggested we find something similar in Nara before making our way back to Kyoto. We managed to find one and the food was good even if it didn’t have the express to table conveyor, nor the game for every five plates, but we walked out well and truly satiated!

We stopped at a supermarket after lunch and took advantage of the fact they had toilets available. unfortunately it was a traditional bowl in the ground squatter which I've never been able to adjust to. On the upside, they had a disabled toilet that had a western style bowl, so I used that. Happy to be done, I looked to flush away the evidence. There were no levers or buttons on the actual toilet itself (not uncommon) but neither did there look to be anything recognisable as a flush on the seat operation panel (you know, the one that sends jets of water or wafts of air up the backside). There was a stainless steel curved plate over a stainless steel rod of sorts, but I thought that might be the safety device that stopped you accidentally pressing the assist call button. Now I could have used google translate to check what the one other button was, but I decided it had to be the flush, so I pushed it. 

It didn't flush. Now I was really stumped as to which one was the button. While I pondered if I'd ever find a way to dispose of the evidence I heard footsteps, then an attempt to open the door and an enquiry in Japanese which I guessed was someone checking on my welfare to my utter embarrassment. At about the time he arrived I realised the stainless still components were the flush so I was able to open the door and assure the gentleman who'd come to rescue me that it was an error. I've got to say I was impressed with the timeliness of his arrival. If I'd been capable I would have found out who his boss was to compliment him on the efficiency of the service. 

We journeyed back to Kyoto and decided we had just enough time to cram in a visit to Kiyomizu-dera which we’d not visited on our previous trip to Kyoto. It was truly spectacular with amazing views of the city in addition to the temple itself.

That simply left getting home on the bus, dinner and packing for another day of travel. Being the end of the day the bus was jam-packed. Sam decided the 45 minute walk would be better and set off while the Rowlands were a bus stop away from us, so we separated and found our own way back. This time, we were headed for Shiga Kogen where we had decided during our final planning session to add a day’s skiing to the itinerary before heading to our final ski destination (Nozawa Onsen).