Forrest Brown

One of the really interesting things about Nara is that there’s hundreds of small deer that roam the city freely. The deer are thought to be heavenly animals that protect the city and the country.

Vendors sell deer cookies that you can buy to feed the deer. You have to be a little careful when feeding the deer because if a group of deer sees that you have the deer cookies, you’ll quickly be surrounded by a huge pack of deer. I saw several times where little old ladies would start feeding one or two deer, but then they would freak out when they became surrounded by twenty or thirty deer.