And suddenly you're in downtown Nara. This is the famous deer park, a huge park in which deer roam freely. They also feel quite free to take a bite out of any paper bag you happen to have food in, so beware. Like the deer of Miyajima, the offshore island in Hiroshima Prefecture, generations of tourist handouts have spoiled them rotten, and they can be surprisingly insistent... so be polite but firm if you want to keep your lunch.

Here's the Nara experience encapsulated: a great date place for young couples who don't mind being hassled. One of the many nice things about the 1979 movie "Keiko" by Canadian director Claude Gagnon (soon to be released on DVD, so I hear!) is the fact that the "date spot" depicted for a Kansai outing is this one, the deer park in Nara. Things haven't changed much in two and a half decades...