Nara was probably my only contribution to my family’s Japan itinerary and I can’t even take credit for it because it was my friend, Gayle, who suggested the popular tourist destination if feeding crackers to deer and having them bow before us was our kind of entertainment.

It was.

Before you know it, we were on the train to Nara, a journey mapped out by my ever-reliable brother-in-law who did his research the night before while I was busy slurping cup noodles in my room and trusting that the details were all being taken cared of.

It was.

Except that the next day, we found ourselves in the women-only carriage, laughing over Jeff’s and Dennis’ discomfort because we totally failed to read the signs in our haste to jump inside as a group. The off-peak hour worked to our advantage as there weren’t a lot of women there at the time. They didn’t seem to mind as they probably found it easier to chalk us up as another set of annoying tourists who couldn’t seem to follow basic instructions boldly printed in Japanese characters with an English translation on the bottom in case they were too dumb to read it right the first time.

It was around lunchtime by the time we arrived at our stop. I can’t remember the name of the station but it had a little fruit shop and I can vividly remember what the strawberries tasted like and they were the sweetest, juiciest, most delicious berries I had ever eaten. It was perfect! And it wasn’t just me who had the same reaction because everyone else — as soon as they had a bite — was like, omigod! In a good way.

Since then, I gauge each and every strawberry I come across against those Japanese ones and so far, nothing compares.

Outside the station, we found this random takoyaki shop where we decided to have lunch, manned by only one staff who cooked our food fresh right in front of us as soon as we made up our minds on what to order based on the pictures on the menu.

It was helluva lot better takoyaki than my first takoyaki in the Philippines, which is quite a blasphemous statement because why would I even go there in terms of comparison? All I’m saying is, what I had in Japan was the real deal and it was very good but my primitive brain liked to connect the dots so here we are.

But, yeah, it was good takoyaki. I wouldn’t rave about it but I liked it.

So to go to where the deer are, we actually had to catch a bus. It wasn’t walking distance or anything. I mean, you can if you really want to but, why?

Although considering how packed the bus was with both locals and fellow tourists, walking would’ve been a more appealing alternative if you were half a masochist or a fitness junkie.

To get the full experience of deer bowing before you, specially formulated deer crackers are sort of a must. You can buy them for 200 yen for a pack of ten which lasts you for a hot minute because as soon as a deer sees you holding one, they’ll bite it off your hand whether you were offering or not so you better be quicker than them.

The deer crackers you can buy from this lady at the front. They are specially formulated to suit the deer’s dietary requirements, made from wheat flour and rice bran and contains no sugar at all because they’d probably go on hyper mode and come charging at everyone like a bull to a matador and nobody wants that. I’m all for keeping them sugar-free.

When the biscuits and the novelty of feeding deer were exhausted, as was naturally bound to happen, we visited the temple close by.

I don’t know what it was called. All we did was take jump shots in front of it before hopping back on a bus that would take us back to the train station.

*Raven at 7 years old