Kyoto: Day 3

Woke up and had delicious ham and egg crepes for breakfast.  The Japanese thought we were strange double-fisting crepes and eating on the sidewalk.  *It's considered faux pas to eat while standing or walking in Japan.  Afterwards we took the bus to Kinkakuji, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

This Kinkakuji is not the original temple.  In 1950, a disturbed student monk burned it to the ground.  However, it was rebuilt and recovered in gold leaf 5x thicker than the original coating.  Personally, I liked Ginkakuji (The Silver Pavilion) and its gardens better - more Zen like.  But I have to admit...the temple shining under the sun, reflected on the surface of the pond, turning the water to gold was a magnificent sight.  This was Kirby's favorite.

Afterwards we thought about going to Ryoanji, which is a famous Zen rock garden, and maybe we should have, but we were done looking at rocks and temples.  So we headed to Arashiyama instead.


Arashiyama is a district in the western outskirts of Kyoto.  On the top of Mt. Arashiyama is the Iwatayama Monkey Park.  Ohhh yeah, you heard me, monkeys.  We just followed the sign to the park, paid our admission fee, and started up the mountain trail.  First of all, it was late afternoon, the sun was starting to set, and once you walked into the forest it got pretty dark.  Secondly, the attendant did not tell us anything other than to point at a sign that said:
Do not stare at the monkeys in the eye!
Do not touch the monkeys!
Do not feed them outside!
Thirdly, she failed to mention that the monkeys were wild.

Because we both are naive Americans, we were under the assumption that the monkeys were in cages at the top of the mountain.  We found out pretty quickly that this was not the case.  The mountain is inhabited by a troop of over 170 Japanese Macaque monkeys.  We began to question our presumption when we heard tree branches rustling above us.  Suddenly, a full-grown monkey dropped out of a tree and walked right up to me.  I stood completely frozen!  I slowly turned around to look at Kirby, just to find out that he had booked it up the trail, leaving me to be attacked!  Luckily the monkey was more interested in cleaning his you-know-whats than me.  But that still doesn't change the fact that my boyfriend deserted me because he is afraid of monkeys.

On the top of the mountain is a small building, pond, and an amazing view of Kyoto.  The attendant could tell we were a little unnerved at the amount of monkeys roaming around and invited us inside.  We bought peanuts and apples for 100yen each and walked into a room with wire covered windows.  Monkeys immediately started jumping up onto the fence near us.  They would reach their little arms as far as they could through the fence and stick out their hands.  It was rather cute.  It is remarkable how dexterous they are.  Almost like we were feeding small children...with really sharp teeth. 

I could have stayed there all day feeding monkeys and taking pictures.  I even followed a little baby monkey around for a good 15 minutes trying to get a good shot.  Unfortunately, it was getting dark and I didn't trust these guys at night.  We eventually made it back to Gion (after taking the wrong bus), Kirby tried okonomiyaki (which he liked), and later we headed back out to Pontocho.

That night we hit up a pub called ING (we never found out if it was pronounced "ing" or "i-n-g").  It is on the second story of an indescribable building, next to a shish-kabob joint, and is tiny. The owner is an older Japanese man who is obsessed with rock n' roll, specifically the Rolling Stones.  Only downside was the copious amount of smoke (the next morning I smelled like an ashtray). *almost all bars, and even restaurants, allow smoking.  But the beer was cheap and he took music requests.  So we drank Sapporo, talked with other foreigners, and listened to Queen late into the night.