Nara Park – Selfies from the Soccer Pitch

As our time in Australia was winding down, we started pricing plane fares back to the USA. Thinking that it would be nice to break up a 14 hour flight into smaller hops, we started looking at the price of fares to places in between Sydney and San Francisco. Interestingly, we found that the combined price of tickets from Sydney to Japan, then Japan to SFO were cheaper than a direct flights from Sydney to SFO!

Next stop … Kyoto, Japan!!

Nara Park, which is located a half an hour South of Kyoto by train, is one of the oldest parks in Japan, having been established in 1880. Besides being the location of a number of impressive Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, Nara Park is home to over 1,200 wild Sika Deer. Legend says that in the 8th century, an enshrined Deity traveled from his home on a white deer to protect the Capital of Japan, Heijokyo, which is the modern day location of Nara. The deer have been considered sacred ever since, and they freely roam everywhere in the park. They are also known as ‘bowing deer’ because of how they’ve learned to bow their heads when offered deer cookies, which are conveniently sold in the park.

We hope you’ll enjoy a gallery of photos taken from our day at Nara Park!