Reconstitution Vacation: Kyoto

It was too difficult to be so close to Kyoto and not return to this beautiful city once more. There is a really interesting district in the city that we didn't make it to last time, so that's where we focused our attention. It's called Arashiyama and lies in the western part of the city near the mountains.

I was determined to see a Japanese snow monkey (in snow or not) before the end of our trip. So our first stop in Kyoto was the wild monkey park on top of a small mountain. We hiked up and up and up... and just when my travel-weary feet were about to give up, we caught a glimpse of an adorable little brown face through the trees. Soon we entered the enclosure for the "wild" monkeys at the summit. There was a building where you could buy some food and feed it to the little critters through some wire grating. They were so polite and would reach their hand out and wait till you handed them a treat. SO japanese... and SO cute!

Then we walked around a little bit and hung out with the dozens of monkeys who were hanging out, sunning themselves and engaging in some public grooming. They really didn't seem to be bothered by our presense, though I was careful to follow the park instructions and never look them in the eye. This was definitely one of the hilights of our trip. I love monkeys!

Next we wandered through some of the shopping districts in Arashiyama looking for lunch. Sadly, the only thing we found that sounded good was ramen. Even though we had that for dinner, we figured we could handle another bowl. SO good. Mainly because it was warm and - although we were so much further south than Misawa, it was still very cold in early November.

Our next stop was the famous bamboo groves. The pathways are lined with massive bamboo shoots and they sound really cool when the wind blows through them. If you've seen the movie Memoirs of a Geisha you've seen them before. Stunning! Below are only a couple of the pictures we took.

Around 5:30 we caught a train to a small village close to where my childhood friend Becca Lauffenburger is teaching english and met up with her for dinner. It was great to see her again - though we had a minute where we had to adjust to the fact that we were seeing each other in a different country. Unfortunately, where we met was a VERY small town and the only two restaurants we could find were McDonald's and - you guessed it - RAMEN! So we had a third bowl of steaming noodles and enjoyed an ice cream cone at McDonald's before returning to our hotel in Osaka.

fun reunion