On Tuesday we decided to strike out on our own in Kyoto. We wanted to go Arashiyama, an area in the northwestern corner of Kyoto where there is a famous giant bamboo grove and a monkey park. So once again we hopped on the subway and we were off on our adventure. We thought that we had seen the worst Japan had to offer in the way of crowds. I mean, you've seen the pictures of shopping in Harajuku and the Nakamise shopping street. Let me tell you, nothing could have prepared us for the subway in Japan during the morning commute. It made BART during rush hour look half empty. You BART riders out there know how packed the train cars get during commute hours. Imagine being on BART, packed in like sardines and absolutely knowing for sure that not one more person can squeeze into your train car. At home, people standing on the platform will realize that there is no more room either look for another car or wait for the next train. If you can't get through the doors, you can't get through the doors, right? Wrong. Evidently, we Americans have it all wrong. In Japan when the subway car is packed, you somehow squeeze in 20 more people. Clearly, Japan has a no-man-left-behind policy. In Tokyo, they actually have "pushers," people whose job it is to push more people into the train cars. You just can't even believe the amount of people squeezed into the space. You are packed in tighter than tight.
So after our exercise in Japanese togetherness, we arrived in Arashiyama to see the famous giant bamboo grove. It took us a while to figure out where we were going, but we finally found it. It was really pretty. I used my phone on panorama mode to take a picture of the girls in front of the bamboo to give you an idea of just how tall it was.
Then it was off to see the macaques of Arashiyama. These are the same monkeys that you see in the "snow monkey" pictures. We had to hike up a big, really steep hill to get to them and at the half-way point Mom decided that she was done, totally over it, and she sat on a bench to wait for us. I think the sign said we climbed up 160 meters, which is higher than Kyoto Tower. It was quite the climb, but it was so worth it! This is the view from the top.
The monkeys were amazing! There are more than 130 macaques that live up here and they just roam free and walk right around you. They warn you going in not to look them in the eye and not to try to touch them and you are supposed to stay a minimum of 10 feet away from them at all times; however, if you're still, the monkeys will just walk right by you. I looked over at Jill at one point and one was literally inches from her. These are wild animals, but they seem to be pretty accustomed to humans.
One of the highlights of our visit with the macaques was the opportunity to go into a wooden building that has wire walls on three sides. Arashiyama totally got it right and put the humans in the cage, not the monkeys. You can buy apple chunks and peanuts to feed to the monkeys. They just climb up the outside of the wire and reach right through and you hand them the food. It was so amazing! You really got to see these little guys up close. Ashley was feeding one monkey in particular for quite a while. He loved the apples, but we discovered he didn't really like the peanuts. She handed him the first peanut and he ate it. The second peanut he held in his lips and then spit it out on the ground. The third peanut he held in his hand and then dropped it on the ground. When she handed him the fourth peanut, he took it and threw back at her. Message received! This was one little monkey with monkey-tude! We were totally cracking up at him!
After all the monkeying around, we headed back down the mountain and stopped for some soft-serve. It was a very warm day and we needed to cool down after our trek. One thing we've all noticed here in Japan - the Japanese people are wild about soft-serve ice cream. Everywhere we go there seems to be a soft-serve ice cream stand on every block. Sometimes there's more than one per block. And they all have long, long lines. And interesting flavors. I've never had soft-serve in the States that came out of the machine with chunks of stuff in it - like almonds in the chocolate almond flavor that I had yesterday, or chocolate shavings in the mint chip or cookie pieces in the cookies and cream. And usually in the States your choices of soft-serve are chocolate, vanilla or swirl. It's pretty cool to see flavors like green tea and cherry blossom, although none of us have been brave enough to try the more exotic flavors.
After our visit to Arashiyama, our day was far from over. We had an excursion booked with our tour group to see a geisha performance and then attend a traditional Japanese dinner. More about that in my next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment