We headed to Kyoto on a regular train. I was looking forward to Kyoto after Osaka, since it's a milder town with a high concentration of temples and shrines. We all ended up sharing a tatami mat room at a hotel called The Sparkling Dolphins, so it was like a three day long slumber party.
Troy and Aiden pillow fighting.
We quickly discovered a nice grocery store around the corner from us, which ended up saving us a lot of money. We bought most of our meals there, and our hotel had a common cooking area, so I was able to cook several times.
Our first full day, we headed to the Imperial Palace. It was gorgeous with all the fall trees, and there were lots of little shrines scattered about. For some reason, there were a lot of cats around (which Aiden dubbed “Buddha Cats”), and I liked seeing them chilling out, stretched out on the shrines and sunning themselves.
Paper cranes.
We finally made it to the actual palace, but found that you needed a special permit to enter, which we obviously didn't have, so we headed off. The train system in Kyoto doesn't really work like in Tokyo; the trains basically only go two directions, so we were stuck buying a bus pass and trying to navigate the bus system. It was pretty confusing and the buses tended to take forever to arrive, so that was a but annoying to say the least.
The next morning, I happened to read in my Lonely Planet guidebook (I've used that one a lot more than any other on this trip and really recommend them) that there would be a big flea market down the street that only happens once a month, so we decided to check that out. It was packed with people, and a ton of vendors selling everything from bottles, to clothes and tons of food. I had a good time looking through all the things for sale, and picked up a couple of trinkets to bring home.
We got a map that showed pictures of landmarks in the area, and there was a monkey icon. Monkey icon had to equal monkeys, so we hopped on the buses again (more long waits, and Kyoto is cooooold this time of year) and got off in the general vicinity of the monkey picture. We ended up at a really beautiful shrine with a little brook going past it, so we played Pooh Sticks and Troy won. The area was beautiful, lots of really nice houses with pretty yards. We started up a street that seemed like it went in the right direction, and just kept walking. After a long, long way and no monkey town, we turned down another street and ran into a couple of ladies hanging out and letting their kids play. We asked them “monkey park?” and they, very animatedly, mimed the way we should go, and finally drew us a little map.
Turns out we were going the right direction, just not far enough. So we started back on our original path, and after maybe 20 more minutes of walking, made it to a really pretty river area at the base of a mountain. And there was a monkey sign! So we bought our tickets at the kiosk, and headed up a flight of stairs to see the monkeys finally.
Now, I had looked online and the site described the walk to monkey town as “up a small hill.” That was no small hill. It ended up being an actual hike up that damn mountain; took us about another 30 minutes to make it up to where the monkeys were.
When we FINALLY did make it all the way to the top, the view was unbelievable. All of Kyoto was spread out in front of us. And there were macaque monkeys everywhere. There's a troop of 170 of them that live wild there, so we couldn't pet them, but we did go inside a little cabin that's covered in chicken wire to feed them. Aiden chose to buy peanuts, and we fed the monkeys through the wire. I'm a terrible person, so I teased the monkeys by pretending to have food in my hand when I didn't. That seriously pissed them off, and those damn monkeys are strong when they grab you. And scary when they scream at you.
We went back outside, and I took some monkey beauty shots with my awesome new camera. I tried to take some pics of a really darling baby monkey, but was very nearly attacked by the mom, so that was axed.
We had to hike down the mountain, and went over to the river to take some more pictures. Guess what came next? More walking! We had to hoof it a few more miles back to a bus stop to get back to the hotel. Halfway there, it started pouring rain. I had my umbrella, but it didn't stop it from completely soaking the bottom half of my jeans and my shoes. I had stupidly warn fabric ballet flats that day, it was night time already, and my feet were so wet and cold.
Finally we got on the bus, and after a long ride made it back to the hotel to change in to warm clothes and make dinner. Thanks to those fucking ('scuse my French) monkeys, we had walked like six miles and gallivanted all over Kyoto in the rain.
Stupid monkeys.
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