Nara

Monsieur Pepe for breakfast: French crepes, genuinely excellent

The deer at Nara Park bow for crackers. Not metaphorically, not occasionally. They bow. They have learned that bowing gets them fed and they apply this knowledge with great consistency and no shame. You buy the crackers and within thirty seconds every deer in the vicinity is aware of this and pointed in your direction.

Breakfast at Monsieur Pepe was the best meal in Nara. A French crepe cafe tucked into the city, and the crepes were genuinely excellent. We had mochi somewhere in the park after. It was fine. Not particularly memorable. The Indian restaurant in Nara, however, had deer on the menu. An Indian restaurant. In a city whose entire identity is built around deer. We found this funnier than the restaurant probably intended.

Todai-ji Temple is worth the trip on its own: the largest bronze Buddha in Japan, inside a wooden hall that is itself the largest wooden structure in the world. The scale does not register from photographs. You have to stand in front of it.