Monkey business in Kyoto

We went out to Arashiyama today to see the bamboo groves. It was quite amazing to see a whole forest of bamboo and beautiful as well. It's a shame it was another rainy day because I can imagine it would be really stunning with little slithers of sunlight slipping between the leaves and stippling the ground below. The green was so zesty and bright, not what you'd imagine it looking like from the pale brown stuff you use to hold up your runner beans! Even on a dull day like this, the colour was limey and juicy and delicious.

But bamboo was not the highlight of my day. Not by a long way. No, the highlight of my day and one of the most memorable experiences of my life was having wild monkeys take food from my hand.

We found a park which had around 140 Japanese snow monkeys living and playing in the trees. You could see them swinging from branch to branch above your head and play fighting in the mud.

Lucky for us, April is when all the babies are born so there quite a few tiny ones around having fleas picked off them by doting mums.

There was an observation area (where you are in a cage - not the monkeys) and you could feed them fruit and nuts. They put their hands through the wires and patiently waited their turn for a chesnut or a bit of apple. They take it so gently from your hand, their fingers are soft like ours. My favourite one, a big fat lady gave me a little nod to say thanks each time I fed her.

We were just in time for lunch as well. Suddenly, a man started running around clanging a bucket and shouting. From nowhere ten monkeys turned into one hundred, running around picking nuts up off the floor. Scrapping over peanuts to can-can music played over loudspeakers. I got so excited I cried a little bit!

Here is one of the monkeys guarding the city below (courtesy of Twitpic hence the low quality).


Tomorrow, "to the castle!" (to be pronounced in ye olde worlde English - cars-ul).

In the pink

Today was spent getting into the inner seams of Kyoto, exploring the Highgashiyama area and the little shopping streets surrounding it. We went in lots of temples and shrines and saw what was surely the worlds biggest Buddah sat cross legged at the bottom of a wooded mountain side, head touching the top. You were supposed to say a prayer to him, I already have all I want so I prayed for world peace and a cure for cancer.

The cherry blossom is just starting to bloom so by the end of the week we should be walking on a soft pink blanket with petals falling around us like wedding confetti. At least that's what I hope it will be like.

This is me in front of one of the temples with a cherry blossom tree not quite at it's peak.




Tonight we are going to paint the town red. We are going to try one of the pub eaterys where all the cool kids go. Paul is planning on trying some saki. I'm thinking it may get spat straight back in the glass!

Nothing much to say today...

Except that Paul is drinking tea out of a bowl and I'm drinking coke out of an egg cup! There are no mugs or glasses and desperate times call for desperate measures!

We were up before 7am today. For some reason, I quite expected it to be warm so I donned a denim skirt, vest top and cardi and headed downstairs to get the taxi to the station. As soon as I reached the front door I realised I'd made a big mistake! It was snowing. Heavily. Flakes the size of saucers! "Hopefully Kyoto will be warmer, it is much further south after all" I thought to myself as I skipped down the stairs to the awaiting taxi, it's driver clad in full winter gear.

5 hours and 5 station changes later (the bullet train is so fast when another one passes it feels like an artic truck hitting a Nissan Micra!), we arrived in Kyoto. It is no warmer here. In fact, when we left the apartment for dinner it was snowing just as heavily as in Mt Fuji!

Thermal knickers tomorrow me thinks.