Nara

We stayed in Osaka for two nights. The first day we spent eating and shopping around Shinsaibashi and Dotonbori, and on the second day, we took a day trip to Nara, which isn't really too far from the Osaka station. When we got to the Nara station, we had to take a JR bus to the Deer Park. As soon as we got off the bus, there were deer everywhere in front of the temple just down the path. There were all kinds of deer waiting for us. Deer that were eager to eat whatever the tourists offered them, like this one:

And deer that were lazy, like this one:

MM and I were fascinated by them. Some deer were friendly and polite, bowing to you asking for food like this deer:

While others were not as friendly, digging through your bags and nudging your hands looking for food , like these ones:

Or these ones:

Basically, once you give them food, they won't stop following you. The trick is to throw your food far away so they start towards that direction and you walk away deer-saliva-free.

It's a huge park. There were temples. The first one we saw had an admission fee so we just chose to take pictures from the outside.

After the temple, we decided it was time for lunch. There were a few restaurants near by. All of them looked good; it became difficult to choose. We ended up in this one restaurant that served bento boxes that included tempura, cold soba noodles and sushi wrapped in persimmon leaves. The sushi was a nice treat. I've never had them presented to me that way before. Everything was delicious and the restaurant was so clean. This was probably one of the best meals we had in Japan and it wasn't even on our list!

We saw a bakeshop nearby that we wanted to give a try so we went there to have dessert. One of my favorite sweet treats in Japan is soft serve ice cream. I probably ate two cones of soft serve ice cream per day while I was there. This bakeshop we went to specializes in Mikasa soft serve, so that's what I got while MM got a delicious looking pastry.

Outside, we spotted a deer that MM decided to feed some green tea. The deer ended up eating the whole cup. MM was so worried it wouldn't be able to digest the cup and that something bad will happen to it.

But nope, it was perfectly fine. In fact, it was so happy it gave us a smile - or a smirk or a "give me more food!" look.

We walked around a bit more and discovered a lot of lamps (?) in the area. And we saw more deer, though the deer that are further inside the park were a lot calmer.

We soon ran out of things to do or places to visit. We started heading back to Osaka earlier than planned, but we got off at the wrong bus stop, which was a blessing in disguise because we ended up seeing more of Nara as we were walking towards the station. We saw a street lined with shops. MM bought more cosmetics from pharmacies and I bought more Pocky from snack stores. We arrived back in Osaka in time for dinner. I told MM that we weren't having any more dessert after our meal because we've had way too many sweets during our trip. And I told her that I especially wouldn't have any more ice cream, but as we were walking around the Osaka station (which was the worst station to navigate around, by the way), we saw this:

I squealed upon seeing Grom - my favorite gelateria in Italy! I knew the no ice cream promise I made five minutes ago was doomed then. I told myself I would just abstain from ice cream when I get back to Manila (broke that promise too - didn't even last a day).

That is all I have of Japan. It's a beautiful country with some of the friendliest people I've met. I waited almost a whole year for this trip and it was definitely worth the wait.