Fare thee well, Osaka, may we meet again in the future and for longer than we have ever met before.

But I would have to say, while the deer bowing for food was cute, the happiness on my partner’s face as an older buck grabbed my entire stack of crackers from my pocket was by far the highlight of the trip.

We went to Nara the following day, fed crackers to deer and walked old temple grounds, the pagoda loomed over us like a crippled monument, its skeleton exposed and scaffolded to keep it upright.