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Brian Butterfield Travel Blog

Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Nara, Awaji Island, Himeji, Kanazawa, Naoshima (Setouchi Art Festival), Hiroshima, Fukuoka

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    Divine (Spoiled) Deer - Nara Park

    Brian Butterfield
    Aug 14, '10 12:08 AM EST

    According to local folklore, deer from this area were considered sacred due to a visit from a god riding a white deer. From that point, the deer were considered divine and sacred by the local shrines and the deer were given protected status

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    Killing one of these sacred deer was a capital offense punishable by death up until the mid 17th Century

    Post World War II the deer were officially stripped of their sacred/divine status, and were instead designated as National Treasures and are now protected (as cash cows for tourism mostly it seems.) They have velvety antlers like Reindeer, and you can pet them and feed them crackers, though when you run out of crackers they will try and eat the t-shirt off your back.

    Bite, Butt, Kick, Knock-Down!
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    petting deer - fascinating to all cultures...
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The Takenaka Internship is granted yearly to one student each from the architecture schools of Yale, M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania. The Takenaka Corporation traces its history back more than four hundred years and this internship provides American students of architecture with a summer of valuable training at Japan's oldest architecture, engineering and construction firm. Based out of the Osaka design office, interns participate in various aspects of design and also accompany archite

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