I was standing on the platform in Odawara waiting for the train to Kyoto, chatting to a group of Middle Aged Indians from Maharashtra (it was lovely to hear that accent again!) when my jaw literally dropped open. A Shinkansen (bullet train) had just shot past in a blur. Here is a video (credit to new travel buddy Matt – I was too slow to react each time one passed) but even that doesn’t show the true speed, up to 200pmh, as this one was just setting off from the station.

The next day I joined Matt on a day trip to Nara, home of The Deer. Hungover from too many plum wines and the lethal Sochu liquor (dinner in a quiet Japanese bar somehow escalated to us regressing to our teenage years and buying a bottle from a Lawsons store to drink on the street – sorry parents!), I dragged myself onto yet another train as the lure of The Deer was too much to resist.

Nara’s deer population wander the parks looking for ‘deer cookies’ (rice crackers) which you can buy – cue hours of fun feeding them / being chased.

I’m not sure that Matt realised just how crazy I would go for The Deer or that he’d spend half the day taking photos of me and my new friends and forking out for more cookies when I ran out 😂

I especially liked the signs detailing the four kinds of deer attack, and seeing how many of each I could spot in real life, which was quite a few Butts but sadly no Knockdowns.

However, this is only funny until you’re the one being chased by a group of cracker addicts looking for their next hit… although it was fun using the hands up STOP sign when the deer got a bit carried away – it really works 😎

No trip to Nara is complete without the obligatory deer selfie although I went one step further with some wet nose kisses (sadly no photo, I guess Matt had had enough by then).

Whilst the shopping streets and modern feel of the town centre weren’t what I was expecting, there is actually more to Nara than deer – Japan is knocking the other countries I’ve visited out of the park with it’s own Buddha images. Nara houses the giant bronze/black Great Buddha in Todaiji Temple which at 15 metres tall I think is my absolute favourite so far. A photo cannot capture the scale of this beauty.

The Big Buddha Hall is actually the largest wooden building in the world – need I say more!?

You can light a sacred incense stick here which I thought would be nice. I was patiently waiting for it to light when I glanced down and noticed I was also burning a hole in my jacket 😬 I think my good luck charm I had just purchased might have saved me from going up in flames outside a temple. (I had actually just been warned about this but obviously took absolutely no notice).

I was struck by the Japanese features on their Buddhas, the eyes, hair and even a little beard in some cases. They look quite different in each country. Nara also has the Healing Buddha that you can touch a particular part of to heal yourself but I’m not sure I did this right 😬

Back in Kyoto, I had another two crazy sightseeing days, where, like Tokyo, I only stopped to eat cake in vegan cafés and sleep. Because the sights are fairly far apart and they get very crowded, you can’t really visit more than a couple of places per day.

I hit the Bamboo forest too late in the day – when I say a place in Japan is crowded, I mean ‘shuffling two steps behind the person ahead of you’ kind of crowded. dodging big tour groups with their guide waving a flag, and bumping into all the girls in their rented Geisha outfits brandishing their selfie sticks at the slightest glimpse of cherry blossom.

I continued on the famous walk between the bamboo trees as I was already there, but much preferred the beautiful private gardens that I stumbled upon nearby, created by the period film actor Denjirō Ōkōchi. This was my first real Japanese garden and tea room experience and I loved it. Unfortunately it turns out that I hate this whipped up green tea 😬

Another first for me that day as I splashed out on a traditional Buddhist vegetarian lunch in the nearby Tenryuji temple grounds. I must have tried over 20 new delicacies – I have no idea what they were except they were totally plant based.

To be honest I enjoyed more the experience of sitting cross legged on a mat and being served a multitude of intriguing dishes, more than I enjoyed the actual dishes themselves 😂

Another must for Kyoto is Geisha spotting. The real ones (with white painted faces) and even the apprentices don’t just wander the streets. They have a celebrity status in Japan. I learned a good way to see one in real life is to hang around the side streets off Gion Corner where the old Tea Houses are, around dusk, looking for any black taxis with their engine running – a sign that a Geisha is leaving work for the day. This is hard to do without looking like a nutter, especially when many venues have security.

After ten minutes I saw a taxi so I joined the other tourists hanging around hopefully and sure enough two beautiful Geishas came out soon after. They moved extremely quickly, heads down and straight into the cab then they were gone. There is a certain thrill to peeking in the taxi windows and seeing a flash of white skin and red lips.

I was due to travel on to Osaka at this point, but by now I had realised 10 days was not enough and I would not be ready to leave Japan in a few days time. I had, by chance, booked a flexible flight out of Osaka so I made the most of it and extended my time here by one more week meaning I could come back to Kyoto for the cherry blossom. Next stop, the mystical Buddhist site of Mount Koya and a night in a temple …