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!

 

Sushiro

 

One thing I just had to try while in Japan is a revolving sushi restaurant. So, of course, when the others talked about going, I just had to say yes. We ended up going to a restaurant called "Sushiro" in the small city/town of Esaka, which is about a 20 min walk, plus 5 min train ride.

Minami-senri, where our dorm resides, is more of a 'suburb' compared to Esaka which is more like a mini-city.

At rolling-sushi restaurants, the sushi comes down on a conveyer belt and you can choose which items you'd like to eat. You're charged by how many plates are on your table in the end. If the plate is on a yellow 'bowl,' that means it was ordered by someone and you shouldn't take it.

 

Once we were able to get a table, we then had to order what food we wanted, because the good stuff kept getting taken before it made to our table.

You order off this screen and the food will appear on the conveyer belt after a few moments. The spout below his hand offers hot water for your tea.

 

There are dishes other than sushi that a person can choose from; from soba noodles to beer, you can get pretty much anything. They even had dessert.

 

 

While I was only able to eat 9 plates, Isobel put us all to shame with her 15 plates. Ailea is looking on in envy.

 

I'm proud of my 9 plates! (But as you can see in the background, the Nihonzin were putting us all to shame)

Sayonara!