Japan: Mike meets some deer

On day six, I woke up early in my temple so that I could attend the 6:30am meditation. My hope was that Japan worked differently than North America and that it would become warmer overnight, but nope -- it was still freezing in the temple.

I sat on a large heated carpet in the meditation room. There were various metal shrine artifacts (Buddhas and whatnot) in an area in front of me. A monk came in and we promptly established that neither of us could speak the other's language. Then he spent ten minutes among the shrines chanting. I spent those ten minutes feeling bad that he had to do all this for just one guest. His monk buddies were probably sleeping in or having a dip in the hot tub.

After the ceremony I went to a room where a nice breakfast was set out for me.

After enjoying breakfast, I tracked down the man who ran the show so that I could pay my bill, then I booked it out of there.  

Koya was beautiful in the morning, as shown here, but it was cold and I had done everything I had wanted to do.

I didn't really have any plans for the day but then a thought hit me: what if I could find a city in which tame deer roamed among the people? That would truly be a sight to behold.

The closest place with deer was Nara, close to Osaka. There are over one thousand deer there that roam freely. You can buy deer crackers to feed them. Click here to see a youtube video of me feeding the deer.

They're pretty fun to watch. Sometimes you see them following people for quite some time because they want more food.

One nipped at my clothes but most of them were well behaved.

After hanging out with the deer I checked out the Todaiji temple. The building in the picture is the world's largest wooden building. It's got a very large Buddha statue and five million schoolchildren inside.

Not much happened after this. I went back to Osaka, found my next Airbnb, tracked down and ate some great shoyu ramen at a place called Sodaisho, wandered around, and went to bed.

Day 6 photo album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/QZcE9RySpJXnSnK33