Visiting Nara

On our last day of this trip we left Kyoto in the morning and drove an hour to Nara. We stopped at Todaiji Temple and interacted with the deer that roam around the area. I thought Todaiji was a bit of a unique temple. You get really "temple-ed out" siteseeing in Asia, but Duke and I still thought this one was cool. It was built in 752 and is the largest wooden building in the world! It was pretty big. On the inside is a 45 ft buddha statue.
As for the deer, wikipedia taught me that the ones in this area used to be considered sacred due to a visit from a certain god who appeared riding a white deer. Killing the deer was considered a capital offense punishable by death. After WWII the deer were stripped of their divine status but were designated as national treasure

Lucy's paparazzi-it never gets old!

In one of the wooden pillars of the temple there is this square hole at the base. It is believed to be the same size as the nostril of Buddha's statue sitting under the same roof. If you can fit through the hole you will reach enlightenment in the next life. So of course I had to stand in line and try!

Lucy was pretty timid of the deer as she is about most things, but I think she enjoyed seeing them from the comfort of dad's arms.

I loved all the fawns!

I had bought some weird snack from Family Mart that I didn't end up liking, so we fed the deer our 2 bags of them. These deer don't mess around when it comes to snacks!!

We thought this guy was going to follow us all the way back to our car^ but he eventually gave up.

I love the flight back to Okinawa. It's always so beautiful.