When H and I were in Osaka, we took a half-day trip to Nara with my sister and her boyfriend. Our only reason for heading to Nara was to the deer park to spend a couple of hours with the sacred deers and it was so much fun!!
Here's a selfie with a chillin' male deer.
Our hotel, Hotel Sunroute Osaka Namba is located at Nippombashi and there is a direct JR train to Kintetsu Nara Station which costs 560yen and takes approximately 40 minutes. Very convenient and easily accessible.
There's a supposedly famous mochi store near the train station so we went in search for it before making our way to the deers.
I don't know what's the exact address, just google map Nakatanido and you'll get there in about 5 minutes by foot.
We only got a piece each and it was actually quite good! I think there's only one flavour available and it's filled with smooth red bean. 130yen/pc
The 4 of us were feeling a little cautious when we first spotted deers 'cause I've heard people mentioned how they're aggressive?!
They're not at all!!
My sister's friend took a video of deers bowing/nodding to her because they want the treats she's holding in her hand hahaha it was super cute. I didn't take any videos but you can go to the Nara Park geotag on my Instagram (
@tippytapp) photos to see what others upload!
After walking around for half an hour and observing how others behave around the deers and vice versa, we finally decided to buy the deer biscuits (150yen) and get ourselves surrounded hahaha.
I kept the biscuits in my pocket because I didn't want to finish them so quickly so I only took out one piece each time and break them into smaller pieces. The deers were sniffing my clothes/bag for treats but they didn't get aggressive at all. Pretty unlike monkeys I guess?
I started attracting them the moment the biscuits were out and it was a little overwhelming initially. Towards the end of the day though, I was waving my biscuits in the air to attract them to come to me hahaha.
The deers always want more, moreeee and after a while, we realized THIS is the sign to show them we've no more treats. Yup, surrender with your hands up and they understand! They'll leave you alone after that to bug other tourists haha.
There was this lone deer chilling by himself so I thought we should go get a picture with him 'cause I like the antlers haha. We were trying to "coax" him to turn his head towards the camera (yeah, like he understands ya) but I think he got annoyed with us after 10 seconds and he just stood up and walked away.
!!!
Okay...............
Never mind, we joined a bunch of others for a group photo 😎
Feeding with my sister who towers over me 🙆
Osaka isn't that exciting to us so I'd totally recommend taking a half-day trip out to Nara.
The deers are very endeering and they are pretty docile in nature. I think many mistook greedy for aggressiveness...although one of the deers did chew on H's shirt - too hungry, probably hahaha.
Do note there's nothing much to do in Nara though! We had a late tonkatsu lunch (which wasn't fantastic despite ranking high on Tripadvisor) then headed back to Osaka.
