Nara Park in Osaka

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Thirty minutes by train from the city center is the suburb of Nara and its massive historical park.  The area is about the size of Central Park in NYC and it was busy on a Sunday.  The park has five major shrines and temples, as well as, thousands of tame deer.  I'm not sure what was the primary interest for most of the folks...the historical aspects or the deer.  There are wild, but tame and certainly don't have a problem getting a free handout of cookies being sold by vendors all over the park.  Their antlers have been removed and the stumped cauterized so there is some control being enforced.  Other than that they were everywhere.

The shrines were beautiful.  You can see I am having fun with my new photo-enhancing program.

 This Buddha statue was easily 30 feet tall.

 The park is also home to the Nara National Treasures Collection.  It is housed in a 19th century western styled building.

 No photos were allowed.  I broke a few rules and got a few more from the web.

In a vault was a collection of bronze vessels from 11 BC to 1 BC.   The door to the vault alone was impressive.  I'm not usually interested with bronze but this collection was magnificent.