While I was planning our itinerary I expected it to be warm and rainy, not hot and humid. Looking at Weather Spark, the actual temperatures have been higher than the 90% percentile. Here’s today: https://weatherspark.com/h/d/143438/2025/6/25/Historical-Weather-on-Wednesday-June-25-2025-in-Kyoto-Japan. If I could plan it again I would try to keep our outdoor activities focussed in the early morning and evening. Today was particularly bad as we had a day trip to Nara Deer Park, meaning the main activity was outside in the middle of the day with no option for air conditioning.
The morning started out with a nice breakfast and walk by the river. The train south to Nara should’ve taken around 45 minutes; however, at our transfer we waited and waited, watching multiple trains pass in the opposite direction. Ned found a little information about a collision and later we found out someone had been hit. The train that finally arrived was packed so full there wasn’t room for the three of us. We didn’t arrive at the deer park until after 1.
Nara Deer Park is not a zoo and the hundreds of deer are not fenced in, but they are taken care of and tourists continually buy deer biscuits to feed them. Continuing the cycle, we bought the rice bran and grain biscuits sold by the park foundation. As Ned and Soren held out the biscuits they were quickly overcome. The deer near the entrance are fairly aggressive and were soon climbing on Ned and Soren and trying to eat their clothes. We escaped as the deer moved on to their next tourist targets. Note: save biscuits for deeper in the park.
The landscape improved the further we walked in the park, and the deer were much more relaxed, trying to stay cool like everyone else. Although the initial encounter was overwhelming we did enjoy seeing so many beautiful animals, especially the babies. We slowly made our way up to Kasuga Taisha shrine (春日大社). Although there was a decent amount of shade I felt unbearably hot and worried I might get heat stroke. We ended up sitting down for a while and were relieved to find some misters at the shrine.
Just past the main shrine area there were very few people. We wandered for a bit in the shade, found the area where the foundation takes care of deer that need help, and then decided not to pursue the other (outdoor) local sites. Instead we stopped for ice cream, where I could practice my Japanese, and then enjoyed fancy coffee in a quiet, air-conditioned shop on the way back to the station.
For dinner Ned found a place near our lodging that served delicious skewered meat and veggies. Afterwards it was cool enough to satisfy Soren’s request to return to the shopping arcades. We’re planning an early start, so we also picked up onigiri for the morning.
(19 767 steps)
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