Adventures in Japan

The Pictures Don't Always Match the Text

I've seen deer before. More than one has darted in front of my car in the middle of the night. But I've never seen a deer up close. I've certainly never been able to walk right up to one and touch it before. But that's what you can do in Nara. The deer are all crazy sociable.


You could be waiting at a bus stop and a deer could come up to you, as if to say, "Hey man. What up? You got any Cheetos?" We just missed the annual antler sawing. All the deer had stumpy circles on their heads. Kinda like Hellboy.


There's more to Nara than just deer. It's also got old, historic temples and shrines and trees with pretty leaves that are changing colour. And right now, for a limited time only, they have some National Treasures on display. Even though it is against our nature, we paid money and went in to see them. Money well spent. It's amazing how well preserved some of the stuff is considering it's all over 1300 years old. A few of the pieces are in pieces and falling apart, but for the most part it all looks fantastic. There are paper scrolls still intact. One of the oldest censuses in existence was on display. That may not sound interesting, but it was. There was a lute on display that was a work of art; it had a bent neck, a painting on the front and mother of pearl inlay on the back. There were intricately carved tables and mirrors and boxes and all sorts of stuff and it all looked gorgeous. There were little tiny ivory birds, smaller than my thumbnail, painted and etched in exquisite detail. There was a box on display, stunning in it's beauty (yet it wasn't even the nicest box on display). As we were looking at it, an old Japanese man came up to us and asked, "You see the trick?" We were a little confused, but still answered no, just to be safe. He then pointed out that the tortoise shell reinforcements along the edges of the box were fake, and the gold base of the box was just a fine layer of gold over wood. The old Japanese fellow went on to explain that the box was a gift box, given away never to be seen again. So it only had to look like it cost a lot, make a good first impression. I just like that some random Japanese dude came up to us and dropped some knowledge.

Speaking of knowledge, do you know how these treasures were kept in such mint condition? They were stored in a log cabin. That may not sound like the most protective of environments, but this may well be the swankest log cabins of all time. The wood swelled in size in humid weather, keeping the moisture out and shrank in dry weather, to let in the breeze and the whole building was on stilts to prevent flooding. And this was constructed back when my ancestors were still soiling their pants. Maybe they didn't even have pants. Not hemp and silk ones, with their vital statistics written on them at least.

We saw some historic undergarments in the museum.