Day 4 : Nara and Peace
The day you’re about to read about might come off as subtle or normal, but it was actually very important to me. It was the first time in a long time that my mind went quiet.
My ADHD, depression, anxiety, and everything else usually work together to eat away at me all day. But when I was in Nara, there were no voices in my head… just white noise.
The only thing we had planned for today was visiting the Nara Deer Park. After that, it was just wandering.
When you get off the station and start walking toward the park, you immediately see stands selling rice crackers for the deer. As we got closer, it finally dawned on me: this wasn’t like a zoo. We were walking directly into their home.
There were so many of them, just roaming freely and doing whatever they wanted. Surprisingly, most of them kept to themselves. Every now and then a deer would walk up to you and bow, expecting a rice cracker.
I wasn’t shocked that they had connected the idea of bowing with getting food. What surprised me more was how chill they were. I only saw one moment where a deer jumped on a girl trying to steal her ice cream.
With the number of deer there, I half expected a full rice cracker rebellion at any moment. But honestly, I never really felt on edge waiting for it.
There were also lots of different paths to explore, and many of them led to shrines, temples, or little exhibits along the way.
Here are some pictures.
Here’s a video:
After fully exploring the park and feeding the deer, it was time to wander freely. I really wanted to see what everyday life in Japan was like.
A lot of the shops were closed, but we did manage to find a cute little café run by a Japanese woman. She was so happy, full of life, and eager to feed us. We were the only people in the café but it didn’t feel that way.
Once again, I got to try speaking Japanese, which made me really happy.
We ordered two croissant sandwiches, and after she took our order she went into the back and made them fresh. I even asked her if we could take a photo!
We continued walking through the streets, and the crazy thing was that it finally felt like we were seeing anime in real life. We crossed a bridge and saw the water and the fish below. We even saw kids walking home from school with their backpacks.
It felt unreal. The same aesthetic scenes I had only seen in anime edits were now happening right in front of me, in first-person view.
Time was moving slowly, but in a good way. For the first time, I was actually taking in the moment instead of rushing through it.
Eventually the day came to an end, and JJ and I decided to have dinner in Nara before heading back to our Airbnb…
