The next weekend we took a field trip to Nara, Japan�fs first �gpermanent�h capital. (Before Nara, it was fashionable for each new emperor/ress to move the capital to a place of his/her choosing, usually where all his/her friends and supporters lived.) Nara has some beautiful temples that are even older than the ones in Kyoto�cand a whole lot of deer.

These aren�ft the flighty deer who run away from any humans not driving a car like the ones back in the Midwest, mind you. These deer are friendly. And hungry. Nara deer are famous because they bow before they take your food. You can buy little deer crackers to feed them. Or you can set your bag down unzipped and look away, like, say, for a professor to lecture, and the deer will grab any food it can get. In lieu of real food paper will do, say, a brochure on Nara, or even a paper bag. It�fs not good for them to eat, but they viciously go after it anyway, as we found out. And you try taking a brochure away from a hungry deer�c This one even squeezed its nose into a crowd to pick up a bag someone had dropped and devour it.

The Five-Storied Pagoda looked to me to have some sort of 50�fs sci-fi death ray on top of it.

Next came Todaiji, home of the famous Daibutsu (�gbig Buddha�h), housed in the Daibutsu-en (�gbig Buddha hall�h), the largest wooden structure in the world. This is one massive Buddha. Inside the hall one of the pillars has a notch cut in it that�fs said to be the size of one of his nostrils. Visitors who can crawl through this notch are rewarded with a lifetime of wisdom. I had three midterms ahead of me and figured I could use some wisdom, so I crawled through. So did about half of SCTI. I guess there goes the curve�c