Monkey day

Today we got up to head up to Arashiyama mountain to see the monkeys. We took the train to the station at arashiyama and attempted to find our way to the place where you can feed the monkeys. Luckily we saw lots of signs for "モンキーパーク"(monkii paaku) the monkey park. The city of arashiyama is right below one of the mountains on the edge of Kyoto. It is quite pretty. Especially with all the leaves changing. We had to take quite a hike up the mountain to see these monkeys. It was worth every yen. I mean how often do you get to feed monkeys. Or play with them. Definately would be illegal in US thanks to lawsuits. The monkeys are the Japanese monkey kind, not sure the actual name. They were really funny. The staff gave us handouts saying not to feed the monkeys in certain places and not to stare the monkeys in the eye. Every now and then the monkeys would start fighting and run around. I kept on thinking of the movie Congo and how the monkeys would attack me if I stared at them. We took a bunch of pictures with the monkeys and they look really funny because we are standing so far away from the monkeys in fear. When we fed the monkeys I got freaked out because their hands and eyes are so human like. When they grabbed the food from our hands it was like a little person was touching us. Anyway, so after monkey goodness we headed back down the mountain. There were a lot of shops and places on the way back to the station so we stopped in a few of those. The guidebook had told me that this arashiyama place was not so crowded because it was farther away from Tokyo. Lies. It was really really crowded.

So we headed back to Nijojo station. Thanks to Kyoto's crappy trains you can't really ride far on them without transfering to another line. So we decided we would go to Nijojo castle while we were there. Before that I went to a eating place inside a sort of mall and they were playing all sorts of christmas songs including feliz navidad. So after lunch we went to the castle. It's this huge castle that some sort of Shogun lived in for a while. Who knows, they never really tell you. This is Japan, they don't tell you anything. And what they do tell you are lies. The castle was really neat though, there are all sorts of gardens all around. Really beautiful with the leaves changing colours.

After the castle we thought we would walk down to central Kyoto and do some looking about. Then we met up with the other girls and ended up eating at this crappy Japanese restaraunt that gets my seal of dissproval. Watami. They ignored us for like an hour and they ended up charging us for a "service charge". Apparently this is because they give you "complimentary" pieces of lettauce and one slice of carrot. After the restaraunt I decided to walk home instead of the metro because I wanted to see more of the city. It was a nice 45-one hour walk. Kyoto and Tokyo are two different places indeed. Kyoto has so much room. The sidewalks weren't crammed with people everywhere you go. It is very nice. You can also see more than one star here. The whole spirit of Kyoto seems so much more relaxed than Tokyo. As obvious by the lateness of the public transportation.

I forgot to add I think that the sheets we have in the hostel are leopard or dalmation print.