Yesterday was an amazing day that started with the daschound (bottom left) and ended with a tall tower (bottom right). I’ll willingly admit that I was a bit hesitant about heading out to Nara Park (奈良公園) outside of Osaka to see the bowing deer. But I don’t regret going, deer-spite my initial doubts. On contraire. The colors in the park are nothing short of deer-lightfully intense right now.

On the way back to the hotel, we were drawn to Osaka’s Eiffel-tower-inspired Tsutenkaku (通天閣), but neither of us had the energy to ride up this time – it had been a full day of deer-cisions, interesting deer-tours, and endless deer inspiration.

Aside from some inevitable street scenes over the next few days, several weeks of research for our forthcoming book project about Japan, at least a dozen travel articles (and photographs for the launch of our new design hotel website for Kyoto) have now been completed.