The end of the day yesterday found me sunburned, with sore feet, quads & shoulders, totally exhausted and completely happy. It was a perfect day. Brett and I headed out shortly after 8:00am to attempt to make our way out to Arashiyama, which came recommended by Amanda and appealed to Brett from a travel book. After purchasing the wrong all day bus pass, and pointing and smiling a lot to helpful information desk people, we were on the right train. :)
Arashiyama boasts a beautiful river, temples and a monkey park. The highlight for us, I do believe, was the Post Office with a bank machine that actually gave me money!!! Sigh of relief.
As we headed up the mountain to the monkey park, we were met by many warning signs: Don't stare at the monkeys in the eye, Don't feed them outside, Don't show them food, Don't Look Like You Have Food, and whatever you do, Don't Look Them In The Eye! So, needless to say, we were both a little tentative as we climbed up the path and then we saw our first two Japanese red-faced monkeys. And then we turned the corner and saw a few more. When we got to the top of the resting area, there were dozens (maybe close to hundred) monkeys. We were lead inside a little resting area where we were able to feed the monkeys through a fence. This way, they only associate people with food as being on the inside. It was soooo cool. We wandered outside with them for another hour or so becoming more brave the longer we were with them. The only time they seemed to get excited is when new people went in to the resting area to feed them.
Arashiyama offered a beautiful river, an incredible bamboo forest (new bamboo shoots over 6' high with a very soft brown fur on them amongst hugely tall bamboo with sunlight filtering through -- breathtaking), temples and a lovely pond. We stopped to dip our feet into the pond -- yesterday was hot and sunny -- and were a little spooked when carp the size of my thigh curiously started poking around our direction. We were to chicken to dangle our feet after that!
Being Brett's last day in Japan, we had a lot of ground to cover, so got back on the train around 3:00pm and stopped in a new part of town on our way back. We walked the Path of Philosophy with follows a little canal under a canopy of trees with flowers and beautiful homes along the way... and of course, more amazing temples. Our favourite was Eiken-do temple which houses the "Buddha Looking Back". The story of this Buddha is that Eiken was walking alone through the cold and it became too much for him. All of a sudden the Buddha appeared to walk ahead of him. He was too tired and cold to go on. Then the Buddha looked back as if to say come with me you can do it.
The place of worship in this temple was like nothing I had ever seen before. Gold everywhere. We sat for a nice long time as a monk chanted and gonged. It was way more beautiful than my words.
We had a great meal (pizza and salad) at a lovely little cafe beside the canal overlooking a beautiful flower garden. We hoped to end our day with a stop in the public bath, but after wandering for blocks and blocks, we found that it was closed! Big disappointment. So we settled for ice cream and melted in to bed.
Another perfect day.
Arashiyama boasts a beautiful river, temples and a monkey park. The highlight for us, I do believe, was the Post Office with a bank machine that actually gave me money!!! Sigh of relief.
As we headed up the mountain to the monkey park, we were met by many warning signs: Don't stare at the monkeys in the eye, Don't feed them outside, Don't show them food, Don't Look Like You Have Food, and whatever you do, Don't Look Them In The Eye! So, needless to say, we were both a little tentative as we climbed up the path and then we saw our first two Japanese red-faced monkeys. And then we turned the corner and saw a few more. When we got to the top of the resting area, there were dozens (maybe close to hundred) monkeys. We were lead inside a little resting area where we were able to feed the monkeys through a fence. This way, they only associate people with food as being on the inside. It was soooo cool. We wandered outside with them for another hour or so becoming more brave the longer we were with them. The only time they seemed to get excited is when new people went in to the resting area to feed them.
Arashiyama offered a beautiful river, an incredible bamboo forest (new bamboo shoots over 6' high with a very soft brown fur on them amongst hugely tall bamboo with sunlight filtering through -- breathtaking), temples and a lovely pond. We stopped to dip our feet into the pond -- yesterday was hot and sunny -- and were a little spooked when carp the size of my thigh curiously started poking around our direction. We were to chicken to dangle our feet after that!
Being Brett's last day in Japan, we had a lot of ground to cover, so got back on the train around 3:00pm and stopped in a new part of town on our way back. We walked the Path of Philosophy with follows a little canal under a canopy of trees with flowers and beautiful homes along the way... and of course, more amazing temples. Our favourite was Eiken-do temple which houses the "Buddha Looking Back". The story of this Buddha is that Eiken was walking alone through the cold and it became too much for him. All of a sudden the Buddha appeared to walk ahead of him. He was too tired and cold to go on. Then the Buddha looked back as if to say come with me you can do it.
The place of worship in this temple was like nothing I had ever seen before. Gold everywhere. We sat for a nice long time as a monk chanted and gonged. It was way more beautiful than my words.
We had a great meal (pizza and salad) at a lovely little cafe beside the canal overlooking a beautiful flower garden. We hoped to end our day with a stop in the public bath, but after wandering for blocks and blocks, we found that it was closed! Big disappointment. So we settled for ice cream and melted in to bed.
Another perfect day.
No comments:
Post a Comment