Atlanta To Japan: Kyoto Day 2 - Monkeys, Geisha, Torii, OH MY

We had breakfast this morning at the B&B along with the other guy that was staying in the B&B. He was from England and we talked with him, the owner, and the owner's daughter about Japan. Juno (the daughter) was VERY talkative (as most 8 year olds are, I suppose), and it was quite an enjoyable breakfast.

We hopped the bus and train down to Arashiyama, another of Kyoto's concentrations of temples and shrines. There, we took a stroll through the bamboo groves that encompass a large portion of the area. It was a little hard to get good photos because of all the people, but we managed some. It was very pretty, and I think I overheard someone saying that kendo places often got their bamboo from that grove.

We stopped into a garden/shrine place that was created by a Japanese silent film star, who had spent most of his life and fortune adding to this garden on the side of the mountain. The views were spectacular, even though the day was fairly cloudy. At the end of the walk through the garden, you get some matcha tea and a little confection, both of which were a bit too bitter for both of our pallets. The matcha is a strong green tea that they froth up before serving it to you - the texture was quite nice even if the flavor was not. The aroma was very grassy as well which Meghan didn't like but I thought was appetizing.

Frothy matcha tea and a slightly sweet snack

We tried to find another temple that we had marked down, but we ended up getting a little lost and couldn't find it. We took a bus back down the center of the Arashiyama area and headed to the Iwatayama Monkey Park. The park itself is up on the top of a fairly high hill/mountain thing - the top is at 150 meters above sea level. The climb was crazy arduous, but the snow monkeys that live there are well worth it.

This monkey wants you to come to the monkey park.

On the last leg of the climb we came across a couple of them who were just lounging in the middle of the pathway grooming each other. There are signs all over the park that warn you to 1) Not stare at the monkeys in the eyes, 2) Never show a monkey any food outside of the designated feeding area, and 3) Do not touch monkeys. We were very worried that in passing these monkeys, we were going to end up violating 2 of those 3 rules, but it ended up being okay.

At the top where the park is, they have a caged in area set up where you buy food (apples, peanuts, and some sort of vegetable) to hand to the monkeys through the cage. It's kind of like a reverse zoo, where the people are caged and the monkeys are running free. The ones that are hungry line the cage and when they see you have food they stick their arms through and hold out their hand for you to place the food into. It's pretty funny, though when they start fighting with each other over the chance to get your food it can be a little scary. We bought some apples and started handing them out. We tried to feed the smaller, nearly baby monkey that we saw, but he quickly got crowded out by the other larger, more aggressive monkeys.

"You give me food, please."

Meghan gives a monkey some apple.

From there, we wandered a little bit into a more natural area where there were some trees that the monkeys were hanging out around. We saw a baby and it's mother (a sign told us that April-July is the season for birthing), as well as some that were hanging out amongst the man-made structures on the cliff. We got some pretty good pictures and headed back down. The path back was almost as hard to walk down as the path up was to climb... We were pretty beat by the time we got back.

This guy looked dead for a little bit.

Just chillin with the homies

Under the binoculars - the step looks like a hat.

BABY MONKEY IS CUTE

*A note from Meghan - Those of you that know me, probably know that I do not like being near actual monkeys. While these monkeys were mostly cute and seemed tame enough, I still think actual monkeys are scary as hell. *

We had lunch near the train station at a little cafe place, where Meghan had an egg sandwich and toast with jam while I had this crazy "Hamburg Steak" thing that was basically a hamburger patty with a fried egg on top with sauce. It was actually pretty tasty.

Hamburg Steak with an egg on top and a salad

We took the train over to Gion, the big shopping district of Kyoto, where we wanted to go for the chance to see some Maiko (geisha apprentices) walking around as they left their residences to head to their engagements. We were lucky enough to catch one walking past us, and I saw another walking down a parallel street - I ran to intercept her path and got some good pictures of her. She had a professional photographer and an attendant lady with her.

Not a geisha. But we thought she needed to be put on the blog anyway -
fashion faux pax fo sho. And no, she wasn't a hooker.

We hung around for a little while longer, but didn't see any walking the street where we were expecting them, so we decided to head to our next destination. On the way off of that street, however, we saw one crossing from a much more busy street to come back down the main maiko street. It was very juxtaposed - a geisha apprentice in full garb crossing a busy modern intersection.

We caught another train over to Fushimi Inari, where the thousand torii gate shrine is. We wanted to catch it in the evening so that the lighting would be better for photos. Another plus to getting there in the evening was that there were very few tourists. We still had a tough time getting some of the shots without people in the pictures, and it would have been very helpful to have had a full size tripod to keep the camera steady with the light being so dim, but we managed to get some shots that we were satisfied with. We also got bit by a ton of mosquitos, because we were trying to get a picture for a while in an area with some standing water, which we didn't notice until we were leaving the area.