531. Day 17 | Nara and Kobe

Tonight is our last night in Japan! :( We have a half day here tomorrow then we are back in Hong Kong tomorrow night. This morning the sun finally came out. We went to Nara Park. I was quite excited to see this beautiful heron. I had always wanted to see a heron in the wild. We watched this one catch and eat a few fish.

However I was mostly looking forward to seeing the deer here! There are apparently over 1000 of them that roam the park. I've never had an encounter like that with a deer before..in Canada, all the wild deer are rare to spot and run away immediately as soon as they see you. So seeing them in the wild is always a special moment. & today we even got to go up and pet them all.

We were able to feed them "deer crackers" ..I actually tasted a piece myself lol. It tasted like nothing. I think it's kind of like a dog treat (I've tasted a dog treat before as well..tasted the same/like nothing - as they shouldn't eat sugars or flavours).



They were so adorable! This was an enclosed area with a few younger deer. The others are allowed to roam all around.



Then we attended a sushi-making class which then ended up being our lunch.


Then we went to a city called Kobe, world famous for its kobe beef! We had a few hours here to explore and shop on our own. This bakery we went to was called Uncle Jam's Bakery. They sell all these different kinds of Anpanman breads. I got a chocolate and custard one. Each is a different flavour and it took us so long to choose..I wanted them all lol. They were delicious!!


*Now this is going to be quite a long story, of the most expensive drink I've ever purchased (in a way), which I managed to do even after the store was closed*

So even with a few hours of shopping today, I didn't manage to buy anything. I had actually been really good so far on this trip. We've been around Shanghai, Hong Kong and now Kyoto/Osaka for over 2 weeks already and I had purchased really little. I always thought the main thing I wanted to get on this trip was a new camera.

That is until we got back to the hotel tonight. Our hotel here is huge and has a LOT of clothing boutiques but unfortunately, we are always out during the hours they're open so we never got a chance to shop around here. We arrived back at our hotel tonight around 8:30pm. All the clothing shops in the hotel close at that time as well or even earlier. Except for a 7-11 convenience store. Last night we went there I got a "16 Tea" - tea made from 16 different vegetables. It was really nice to drink, especially before bed, so I wanted one again tonight. So..that ended up being the most expensive tea I have ever purchased lol. Because I ended up buying a pair of shoes along with it!

Yesterday I mentioned trying on sandals with fur at the department store. I had been wanting fur shoes for a long time already; ever since I discovered the Pierre Hardy fur sneakers. Unfortunately those ones weren't able to be shipped to Canada because of the fur I assume, and over the past few weeks I've seen some fur ones here in Asia but none were even close to what I wanted. I actually have kind of a different taste in fashion than most people..the fur shoes are kind of crazy and I don't know if many people like them, but I really love them. This is what they look like. I should also mention that I don't like many things but when I find something I do like...I try to get it no matter what.

Anyways back to the tea purchase. After I got the tea, my mom wanted to walk through one hallway as there was an art store with some nice paintings/dolls in the window that she wanted to look at. Right beside that boutique was another where I spotted some pink fur sneakers in the window. They caught my eye immediately as the style was exactly what I wanted (& now I realize I like them even more than the Pierre Hardy ones). The shop had already been closed for maybe 20 minutes, but the 2 sales associates were still inside possibly eating their dinner. They saw us peeking in..then told us they were closed but let us in anyway as I said all I wanted to do was take a look at the shoes. I didn't even think to buy them because they were bright pink. Then she comes up behind me with the pair in another colour...the perfect shade of navy blue!! My favourite colour. They were so beautiful I knew I wanted them immediately. I tried them on and immediately loved them. Slowly got past the sticker shock and decided to buy them. I know if it was anything else, this would have been a really impulsive purchase (since I was kind of forced to make a decision to buy them or not right away..as the store was already closed and I felt bad for asking to go in after hours). But the sales associates were so nice and patient, as they all are in Japan. I knew if I didn't get them I would regret it, and I had been wanting shoes like that since forever. & finally found the perfect ones :D

I ended up purchasing them and they walked us out the store. There was a looong hallway to walk up the stairs to the lobby, but the sales associates stood there waving to us and bowing the entire time, until we were out of sight. We know this because we looked back a few times to check if they were really still there lol. It was probably a 20-30 second walk.

I will post pics of them a later time but they are on my Snapchat (username - leftbanked) if you want to take a look! ;)


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