Oh Deer

Today's excursion was to Nara. Nara has a park with many temples and shrines, where deer roam free. The deer are sacred as they are seen as messengers of the gods.

We started at the Todai Ji Buddhist temple, which houses the biggest Buddha statue in the world.

After that we had some free time to feed the deer. You can buy deer "cookies" which are made from rice husks and wheat, but the deer were not shy, and if you didn't feed them fast enough they were happy to take a nibble of your clothes instead.  I have no photos of me feeding the deer because I freaked out and threw all my cookies on the ground and ran away when this happened to me.

After the Buddhist temple we went to a Shinto shrine.  The deer here were a lot more polite and bowed at you, but I had no cookies left.  

We were then dropped off in Naramarchi to go shopping. Unfortunately, it was Sunday,  so not much was open.  For the 3rd day running our guide was telling us something was made out of ooder, which I assumed was some sort of new fangled construction material rather than a mispronounced version of the Dr Who species the Ood.  Turns out they are saying "wood" in a very strange accent!

Back onboard we won 2 rounds of trivia, before trying out the main restaurant for the first time. Becky had the beouf bourguinon and I had chicken roulade. Then it was off to bed for yet another early night.