We arrived in Nara and we found the hotel was even closer to the station than mentioned, its right next door. Not sure this will be as great as it sounds as we can hear the trains on the tracks just outside our window.
The hotel couldn’t check us in till 3pm, however they had bike rentals so we hired some for a few hours to check out things around Nara. First thing of course was to cycle up to the deer park and cycling beats walking there any day. Only took a few minutes to ride up the road to the park.
There is a metric shed load of deer just as described everywhere. Everyone seemed to be focused on buying “deer cookies” to feed them. I was more concerned with avoiding all the deer output and not treading in it.
Also cruised past the pagoda and temple. We are both a little bit templed out. To be honest once you have seen a number of temples and shrines they all start to look the same. For me, my number is about 2 temples.
Coming back into the main strip, we both noticed a pizza house and decided very quickly that’s what we were having for lunch. The pizza was pretty good. The restaurant has a map for tourists to place a sticky dot on the city they are from. We were the first Australians it would seem.
After lunch we cycled down the river for a bit when Dave noticed a baseball game in play across the road so we went to watch for a few minutes. A couple of the kids came over and wanted to practice their English with us, we have had this happen a number of times now. I was chucking to myself a bit thinking if this had been Australia, two middle aged guys talking to school kids in a park some concerned citizen would have called the cops by now.
We had to stop at a level crossing
This hotel has tatami mats and you need to leave shoes in lockers in the lobby. The hotel has a fantastic Onsen that includes two outdoor baths and two indoor ones plus a sauna. I am going to miss the Onsens when I get home.
It's all about the coffee 