A new beginning

When I took a moment in between work to catch my breath, a fleeting thought crossed my mind that at one time I had managed a blog.
And with that thought I am once again back at my blog, and shocked to see that my last post was over a year and a half ago. Time flies so fast nowadays; is this the marker that introduces me to adulthood?

Lately, I have found myself comparing American life to Japanese life; things as simple as traffic lights take me back to the many moments I spent in Japan. How is it that such a short period of time in my 20+ years of life can have such an impact on me still?

Since lately I find my mind in constant comparison, I decided to run with the idea and do a comparison of my American life to the Japanese life I remember and constantly see in forms of Japanese media. Whether this will clear my cluttered mind, or simply leave me with greater yearning for the country of the rising sun, I hope that this blog will at least provide some entertainment and maybe a help to anyone wanting to experience either of our cultures.

Jidai Matsuri

Jidai Matsuri (Festival of The Ages) takes place once a year on October 22: the anniversary of Kyoto's foundation. This festival consists of a parade that travels from the Imperial Palace to the Heian shrine, which is a 2 mile walk.
This parade consists of thousands of people who are all wearing accurate garb from time periods of Japan's past. The costumes cover over a 1000 years of history and the parade is seperated by time period and then theme.
It starts with the Meiji Restoration and then goes backwards in time to the Heian Period. The parade took over 4 hours to watch! Just scroll through all the pics and enjoy!

 

Iwatayama Monkey Park

Lately it's been really hard to find my brother souvenirs. Everything in Japan seems to be super cute! Even the men here will have cute phone charms or straps on their bags.

Well, my brother loves monkeys, his nickname is 'Monkey,' so I decided to make a trip to Iwatayama Monkey Park in Arashiyama.

Arashiyama is a section of Kyoto with lots of old buildings and tons of Japanese maples on the surrounding hills.

One of the famous landmarks here is the Togetsukyo Bridge which runs across the Oi River. The bridge is mentioned in the famous novel Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji).

 

More of the bridge.

 

The entire area was very beautiful with tons of vendors selling food and souvenirs.

 

A meat-bun vendor.

 

 

The get to the entrance of the monkey park, you had to go to Ichitani Munakata shrine.

 

After paying an entrance fee, you then had to walk up the mountain for about 20 min. It ended up being more of a hike.

 

 

But the mountain path was really pretty.

You can see on some of the trees that the leaves were beginning to change.

As you can see, it started getting really steep.

We ended up hearing the monkeys before we saw them, but when we got to the top there were monkeys everywhere.

The monkeys were playing it cool, but I was pretty excited.

 

 

 

 

According to the info. there's about 120 monkeys in the park. They're known as snow monkeys in Japan, and these monkeys are known for climbing into hot springs when it gets really cold. But you don't want to get too close because these monkeys are vicious little buggers!

 

 

 The view was also really great. It made the climb up totally worth it.

Tired little monkey.

The monkeys are too cool for us.

 

 

Too Cute!

You were also able to go inside this building where you could feed the monkeys. This time we were in the cage! You had to remember that these monkeys were known for being vicious.

Feeding the monkeys bananas

 

A video of me feeding the monkeys.

Laura attempting to feed the monkeys.

 

 

There were tons of baby monkeys! They were sooo cute!

The babies are born in July, but it takes snow monkeys about 10 years to become adults.

Playing in the trees.

Cute!

 

Since there were lots of babies, there were also tons of moms around.

 

Isn't he cute!!!???

A video for my brother.

Just seconds before I started video taping, this little monkey came over and pulled on my camera strap. I didn' dare move because that mom was watching me like a hawk.

 

 

And, of course, a bunch of monkeys monkeying around.

 

 

We decided to feed the monkeys one last time.

 

And what kind of trip would it be without a Geisha!

 

Sayonara!