Ok, first of all, this all happened yesterday, on thursday. Just wanted to make that clear. Also, Danni stayed home, because she was sick. Also, this is kind of long. Sorry about that.
Right, as the title suggests, yesterday we all ran into a few deer. We went to Nara, specifically the deer park and temple there.
Our first mistake was, I admit, the biscuits. Well, Liam`s first mistake. One of the teachers bought a packet to feed to the deer. It got passed around, and some people fed a deer or two, no problems, bar a couple of bites from particularly hungry deer. Somehow, Liam ended up with a packet of six biscuits, and was almost instantly surrounded. He escaped with only a handful of bites, which was pretty good. It`s ok, he`s fine now.
We had our picture taken in front of the big archway thing (look to facebook for pictures) and then all went into the Buddhist temple. The temple was made entirely from wood. There were big paper things hanging off... something (not exactly sure what, maybe metal poles?) apparently they are for a festival happening on Sunday. On the way in we saw one very small fire extinguisher, and a fire bucket. None of us thought they would really be a big help if the place went up in flames. The statues inside were so big, they had to build the temple around them. The temple itself was about 3 stories high, plus the huge roof. People were praying and taking lots of pictures. Behind the statues were scale models of the temples, and stalls where they were selling things like deer pens and lucky charms. You could also go through Buddha`s nose, which is just a hole through a wooden column. I was slightly disappointed to learn that it looked nothing like a nose.
This is the part where the story changes depending on who you talk to, because we all sort of split up into little groups. My group (In this case me, Vanessa, Cree, Jackie, Cheryleita and Steven(and maybe someone else, can`t remember)), thinking it was time to go, went to the place we were supposed to meet, and looked after a person`s umbrella. They just left it lying around, and a deer tried to eat it, so Vanessa saved it (the umbrella, that is). We then bought ice cream while checking the bus, and just as we came back to the meeting place, everyone else appeared with a bunch of japanese boys they met. They promised to show us the way to MacDonalds, so everyone followed them to the big shopping place. We ate, then went shopping. Some of us, myself included, turned back after a while, but got stuck in the hundred yen shop ($2 shop). Those places are two/three stories in Japan! And they have everything, from gardening things to little baskets to school books to... well, you get the idea.
We all went back to the deer park, most of us indulged in ice cream or shaved ice and a couple of little trinkets, then we went back to the bus and tried to scare the teachers by pretending to be asleep and then suddenly yelling/jumping, but we all started laughing, so it didn`t work. The back of the bus became a little crane making production line, with some people pre-folding the paper, and others making the cranes up to certain points, then passing it on to other people, who did the next bit and so on.
Overall, it was an interesting day, but I don`t think anyone on this trip will ever think of deers the same way again.
By Katie-Ann Peart :)
LOL !!!!
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