Woke up hella early (7:30-ish), showered, re-packed (can't believe how much stuff I bought and how it can all still fit in my little bags!), checked out and headed to my first temple of the day! I left my bags in a coin locker at Kyoto station (I love those! So convenient for the weary traveler), and grabbed some breakfast at a little bakery before jumping on a bus to Kiyomizu Temple. I guess the place that I thought was Kiyomizu yesterday actually was a different temple...I was in the right area though, just didn't walk far enough. It was a beautiful day and the tourists were out in full force! In order to get to this temple you have to hike a bit but there are a lot of little shops to stop at on the way that sell neat hand made crafts and the usual tourist goods. The path that I choose to take up there (there are three different ways to choose from) was called something like "pottery road" so they had a sort of pottery museum of hand crafted things that were also for sale. Price tag on most of them were a little beyond me but they were nice to look at. A lot of Chinese zodiac related statues and what-not. This coming year is going to be year of the rabbit so all you people born in the years 51, 75, 87, or 99 it's gonna be your lucky year! Anyone know what this year was??
There was an entrance fee of 400 yen (about $4.00) but that's no surprise; it being a main tourist attraction and what-not.The structure of this Temple is pretty neat. It half hangs over a cliff and there is this underground portion that holds a lucky boulder. It's completely pitch dark inside and the whole time I was terrified that there was going to be stairs and I'd fall down them (great tourist trap, eh?). But luckily they aren't that malevolent and I eventually found the hand rail you're supposed to follow until the rock "appears" before you. The rock has a spot light on it and it's on a spinning pedestal. You're supposed to touch it and make a wish or something silly like that.
The temple grounds were pretty spacious and there was a nice view of Kyoto city. Most the foreigners around me seemed to be from Australia...I think they're all running away from the massive floods or something. Anyway, I asked one of these nice Australians to take my picture for me (I always feel kinda lame when I ask someone to take my picture because then they're like "oh, are you travelling alone?" and i'm like "yeah..." and in they're like "oh, that's nice" but in their minds I know they're like "poor lonely thing, has no one to travel with". But anyway, I digress.
I gave in and bought some charms there even though I told myself I wouldn't but they are just so cute and they had an Aries charm so I had to buy it! XD My next stop was the famous Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion). It was quite a ways away from Kiyomizu (about 40 minutes by bus) but it was nice to be able to see the rest of the city. Kyoto is very different from Tokyo and Osaka. A lot more historical feeling with all it's old-school style buildings and very narrow winding streets like you see in the movies. Old ladies were out in full force as well, but that's because it was around 11am on a weekday and that's their time no matter what part of Japan you're in.
Kinkakuji wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be, but maybe that's because i've seen so many pictures of it and knew what to expect. Non-the-less, it was beautiful and they offered a little tea ceremony with sugar cake. Met another group from Australia and asked them to take my picture ("sorry little loner, of course we'll take your picture for you"). Unfortunately you can't go inside this temple so all you're left to do after you've stared at it for a sufficient amount of time is walk around the gardens. I believe this area was built as some sort of summer home before it was converted into a temple. It's not even the original though because like all other castles and temples in Japan it's made out of wood and, well, wood likes to burn. It burnt down in 1950 and they completely had it rebuilt to the tee by 1955 (not bad).
By the time I left it was only about 1pm and my night bus back to Tokyo didn't leave until 10pm so I decided to stop at the monkey park in Arashiyama! This place was probably my favorite place in Kyoto. It's way out in the country side and so amazingly beautiful. There's a river that flows from the mountain down the middle of the town and it's not all murky and gross smelling like the rivers in Tokyo (or any big city with a river). I had lunch at a nice little restaurant (tempura udon, yum!) then made my way toward to monkey park.
The park has about 130 monkey's living in it and there is an observatory at the top of the 20 minute hike up the mountain. When you enter the park however, there is a sign that reads "don't pet the monkeys, don't show food to the monkeys, and don't look them in the eye". Don't look them in the eye? What'll happen? Are they like gremlins where they'll turn evil if you get them wet (except in this case if you star at them?). Anyway, I made it to the observatory with no evil monkey encounter and paid 100 yen to feed the little devils. They were so cute! They're the Japanese brown monkeys with no tail and red butts. It was so strange feeding them though because their hands are like little human hands and their hairless faces so much like a little person face; felt like I was feeding hairy midgets or something XD Ah, evolution theory. There was this one though who was a real jerk and would push all the littler monkey's outta the way and scream at them. He intimidated me so I gave him all my apples. There was an even better view of Kyoto from here and one of the monkey keepers offered to take my picture with one of the monkeys (great, even he thinks i'm lonely). By the time I climbed back down it was about 4 so I decided it was time to head back to Osaka (because i'm a noob and booked my bus outta Osaka instead of Kyoto even though I spent my last day in Kyoto...such is life).
Didn't take as long as I thought it would to get back though and I found myself with nothing to do for 3 1/2 hours. I had dinner at the station then went and found a cafe to whittle away the last couple hours with episodes Family Guy. Bus ride back sucked just as much as it did getting there except this time instead of being exceptionally hot it was really freaking cold. Got to Shinjuku at 6:30am, home at 7:30am. Now i'm doing Osouji (sorta like spring cleaning except in the middle of winter. They do it in preparation of the New Year), then i'm going to watch all the Biohazard movies because I told my host dad that I haven't seen them so he went and rented all of them for me as a late Xmas present. Also gonna make Enchiladas for din-din because my host mom has been super busy lately (their eldest daughter is moving back in because she has some sort of mental issue going on, but more on that later).
Like i've said before, New Years here is kinda like Xmas where you spend it with your family and just eat and watch movies/tv and take it easy. Looking forward to it.
I'll post pictures probably later today or tomorrow so,
Until Next time!
Jamie
