Japan - Kyoto - Day 9

- Friday, October 9th 2015 -

This was probably my favorite day in Kyoto.  Our plan for the day was to head out to Arashiyama and see what happened.  We knew we wanted to visit the Monkey Park, but that was all we really had officially planned!
This next post is VERY picture heavy, there's like.. 70 photos.

ONWARD!

So, I'm not sure what I did to incur the wrath of Emma, but my first photo of the day was this;

 I do remember her being very unamused with me.  Which does make me think we had the Irish Pub last night, as usually she's unamused when I make her get out of bed.  This day I'm 99% sure was one of the days she was dragging, and I'm my usual "I'M UP! I FEEL NOTHING!" attitude (in reality I do sometimes feel draggy in the morning,  Just not often.)

A couple of train transfers later, we arrive at the Arashiyama station, which is decorated in anime and has a ton of adorable shops right at it (and a foot bath).

of course I photograph the anime boys.

At the train station you're able to buy bike rentals (and other things) so we bought a bike rental for about $10 and got a free footbath ticket with it.  The bikes didn't have to go back until  5pm so we had all day!

Pedaling on a bike that's got a strange setup compared to what you're used to is so much fun.  Basket in the front with all my things, more upright, and of course, crowded Japan!  WEEEEEE! Lots of giggling and minor screams happened.  Emma got bored with my leading slowly and eventually took over. Phhft.
We pedaled our way off to the Bamboo Forest!  Which, as warned, was teaming with people.  Still, it was really pretty and fun to ride though.

Super out of focus, oops.  Picked the wrong one to upload.

The bike locks on these things are brilliant.  You have a key and just move a little lever to lock the tires.  Super fast, efficient and easy.  Our first stop while bike riding was a little shrine called Nonomiya.

Of course I didn't hold still ever while photographing today. Go me.

It was small and cute, but we didn't explore all of it.  Wanting to hit the road again and see MOAR!  While bike riding we were approached by this one area who had keepers at all 3? or 4? entrances. All of them were friendly, and all of them tried to persuade us to go inside and spend $30 on seeing the grounds and 'a couple of sweets'. Bah! It did look lovely, but no thanks.

Wandering around more and not really having any direction, we came across some random birds!

You probably can't see them in this one, but in the full resolution one I have you can. We went down that road a little, but turned around and went another route. 

The other route took us to a lovely .... garden?  Honestly I have no idea where we ended up.  The sign wasn't in English.  Still, we paid the entry fee and went for what would end up being one of the prettiest walks I think we took!

The gate to 'wanna do it?'

After committing to the entrance fee. Which was only $5, and in my opinion, worth it!

Follow the cut, as there's lots of pretty garden photos coming up!...and monkeys.

The official path.

So at first we went down a side path to the left, wandering around it a bit and walking through spider webs.  I opted not to fully explore that area, as there was a ton left to wander!  So, in my usual fashion, I picked a direction (which in this case was up) and followed it all the way....well...up.

Remember how I mentioned those shoes back in Tokyo?  I honestly don't think these little guys will scare any demons off, still, it was very cute to see them.

 After that side detour we went on to the 'up' part.

 The autumn colors from up there were beautiful!

The property was littered with little shrines and even had a small graveyard up towards the top.  Picture spam ahead!

The top.

View from the top.

Once we reached the top, we started winding our way on down, taking the side paths and exploring the rest of the route.

By now I had to pee. 

 And the only bathroom was a squat-toilet.  This was the second or third time I'd used them, but I kept getting asked by my facebook friends what they were like.  Well, here you are.  My big american butt standing in one.  There's really not much room!

Emma and I ended up following this little guy for awhile.

Then we headed out!  Going down the hill and towards the water so we could find the Monkey Park!  It wasn't too hard really, across two bridges and turn right.

On our way there.

 There were signs posted to not take pictures on route to the monkey park.  I figured it was mostly so you don't hold up traffic.  As we were leaving there was a school field trip on its way up, I'm glad we came when we did.

It was a long walk (sorta? Longer than I expected.  Not sure what I was expecting though!) up a winding paved mountain path. But soon enough we got there! The monkeys weren't in cages or anything, roaming free.

View from the top

Emma with a monkey crossing.

These two were having some issues.

 There was a very greedy mom, who'd grab food offered to the baby before the baby could take it.  Poor baby. And another 'duo' who apparently it wasn't that ones baby, as the mom came over and stole the baby and threw a tantrum at the other monkey.

Emma bought some apples and fed the monkeys in the monkey feeding hut.

She shared and took some pics of me as well!

 We started wandering around once out of apples, finding the grooming section where there were tons of monkeys just basking and grooming eachother.

 This guy was chilling further down the mountain by some water (drinking as well...)

Random cute couple.

So, we headed down to get some food then!  Some commotion gathering on the island the bridges connected to, so we decided to grab food there and people watch.  For the most part we'd packed snacks in our bags for the day, but I was feeling a little hungrier than just snacks.

The area we bike rode looking for food, to the right was...

These guys! (were to the right)

Emma ended up buying some Sweet Dumplings, which were really not bad.  the first bite caught me off guard but it was enjoyable!

 We people watched for awhile.  Lots and lots of school teams marching across the bridge and gathering around.  I have a feeling it was a competition or performance or something.

After a bit of watching and snacking, we turned and headed back into town.  Biking up and down the strip and shopping!  Emma bought a thing... which I won't go TOO into.  Then we dropped the bikes off and went to the foot bath, which was really nice and relaxing! Following that we headed back to Kyoto.

And got lost.

But while lost and failing to figure out where we were, we bought Dunkin Donuts? The train station was too big! Or wait, did we get lost at this train station? I'm only mostly sure... I feel like we got lost in Tokyo as well.  But I think it WAS this way, because I have donut pictures.  Or perhaps I just have donut pictures because I like donuts.  But at some point in this trip we did take the wrong exit and have no idea where we were, and ended up stopping for donuts and staring at maps to try and figure out where we were.  Still think this was in Tokyo... eh.  WHO KNOWS!  I get lost a lot.

We then relied on Leanne's sense of direction and thus got lost again.  I said "it's super easy! Just go this way and take a left!".  Well. It was Right.  Not left.  Anyway, we found the Nishiki Food Market. Packed to the brim with people and foods, and all sorts of shops and spanning both directions, I did wonder HOW we didn't find it while being lost! It's HUGE! and well blended into its surroundings if you don't know what you're looking for.

anyway, we browsed a lot.  I don't think we ate much there this time.  I would eventually buy Takoyaki and give it a try (not bad!  $4.50 for eight?!) I expected them to be crispy but eh.

Anyway, Emma found a manga store.  And they had the series I was looking for...  So I spent $110 on manga I can't read.  SUPPORT THE ARTIST!

We also picked up some Sake (on the top).

Now I THINK we went for Dominos that night, because neither of us wanted to go back out.  I'm not sure, but my credit card charge went through on the 10th and this is the 9th so I'm gonna guess maybe that.  Our "Small" was really a personal size in America.  Feeds 2-3?! I could eat that myself!  Anyway. The crust wasn't as crispy as I was expecting.  Still, having good old fashioned pizza was nice.   Assuming that's what we had.  Which I'm still pretty sure it was.  But honestly who knows.  We had pancakes one of the upcoming days, stood in line for awhile just to find out they were out of fruits.  Phhft.  Ahem.  And so concludes my favorite day of Kyoto, and possibly my favorite day of the trip!