David Needham

Happy Birthday to me! ^_^

This morning, Chris, Dan, and I had our last breakfast together. After breakfast, they took off to the Tokyo airport so that Dan could fly back to Peoria. The hotel was so nice (and cheap) that I decided to stay another day there in a single room.

I'm spending today at the Arashiyama Monkey Park! Arashiyama is a small suburb just outside/inside of Kyoto, just beside the Hozu river. The Monkey Park itself sits atop Mt. Arashiyama. Once I got there, I first had to cross the "historic" Togetsukyo bridge which spans the Hozu River.

Here is a shot of the Hozu River.

This must be a good fishing spot, as there were a number of fishermen in the area.

Here is a view of the Hozu River from the Togetsukyo Bridge - looking towards Kyoto.

And here's a shot looking the opposite direction - toward the mountains.

Once I got across the river, I tried to follow the map that I got at the train station to the Monkey Park. Unfortunately it was all in hiragana / katakana, so I went towards the wrong park in the opposite direction. I asked a nice-looking security guard for help, and he pointed me in the right direction.

Once I finally got to the park, I was welcomed by this map.

The hike up the hill was pretty rough. It wouldn't have been so bad except that I was heading up at about noon. Fortunately most of the path was covered, but there wasn't a lot of wind because the trees were so thick. The workers got around the mountain on little mopeds. I'm not sure how they made it, since the path was mostly rocks and steps, but it sure did look easier than walking.

I walked up to the crossroads, where there was a bench and another sign showing the different ways I could go. The signs suggested taking the lower path to the right, as it was covered by trees and would be cooler. I sat there for awhile and drank some water or whatever I had. As I was sitting there, I heard some sounds coming from the woods. I hadn't seen any monkeys yet, but I could tell that I was about to!

The first stop along the path I took (the lower one to the right on the map) is at the play area. They have some playground equipment including this long slide. It sort of looked like they took two slides and combined them. Sitting at the top of the slide and just to the left, were monkeys.

This monkey was searching for mites on itself. It was doing it the same way you might look for ticks or fleas on a pet, except that he was doing it to himself. I guess the photo doesn't look like much, but I was impressed when I saw it in person.

Once I made it past the slide, I arrived at "The Resting Place". The Resting Place, was a small building at the top of the mountain where the workers did work, the visitors could relax with AC and cool drinks and light snacks, and the monkeys hung out and begged for food.

As a crawled my way up to the last bit of the mountain, I was greeted with a cheery "Welcome to The Resting Place!" by a nice worker who spoke some English. He brought me inside into the wonderful AC and gave me a cold washcloth to wash my hands and face. I bought a bottle of water here at a reasonable price, and watched the monkeys from inside. They liked to sit on the cage we were enclosed in and beg for food (which we could buy for less than $1).

There were a number of babies in this monkey troop. The mommas didn't mind getting close. In fact, all of the moneys were pretty well used to human contact so much that they more or less ignored us (despite being wild).

This monkey was giving the other a back massage. Either that, or he was a monkey proctologist.

Here is the little baby monkey running off behind the building.

"George? Are you alright?" Actually, the monkey was just lazy.

This baby monkey was perched on a pole. He was having fun jumping around and swinging on the ropes.

These two young monkeys are pretending that they are destroying the city below.

I'm not sure where Arashiyama ends and Kyoto starts. I think that's mostly Kyoto.

This little monkey was looking off at the city in awe. Even though he lives there, he still enjoys looking at the sights.

This was the monkey M.A.S.H - Monkey Army Surgical Hospital.

This shot reminded me of friends or family meeting with convicts in prison.

This pond was also at The Resting Place. Monkeys came there to drink, pick mites off other monkeys, and fish.

A few of the baby monkeys gathered in this area to play. It was a nice shady area where the mommas could leave them alone. It sort of reminded me of a monkey daycare. :-)

Suddenly, monkeys started appearing out of nowhere. I'm not sure where they were all hiding, but they knew that it was getting close to dinner time.

As I said earlier, the monkeys were pretty used to people being around. They were still wild, but yet didn't mind us getting up close. It was much better than a zoo!

The monkeys were being fed some kind of grain. The worker was spreading it out like you might see someone feeding chickens.

This poor baby was all alone amidst the chaos of feeding time.

Here's a bunch of moneys just fooling around and having a good time. The big one was especially creepy.

Here is one of the baby monkeys sitting on a hose. He was very cute, but he looked kinda nervous.

After the feeding, the baby monkeys came up to the building and played around so all of us could see.

This baby was clinging onto the fence with is momma. I wasn't sure if he should be fed the monkey food, and he didn't reach out, so I didn't give him any.

This monkey kept screaming. I'm not sure why. He probably wanted food or something. People kept looking at me like I was causing it - even though he started that before I took any pictures of him, and continued after I was done taking pictures. Oh well.

I started off down the other path that I didn't take last time. It was sunnier, but it seemed to be significantly shorter. I got down the mountain, crossed the bridge, and headed back to the train station. I started getting hungry, so I stopped by the convenience store (7-eleven, Lawsons, or who knows what). I picked up some onigiri . Onigiri is basically rice with some sort of something in side (usually fish). Unfortunately, I can't read the packages and there are rarely pictures, so every time I get one it's a mystery what it might be!

I also got some coffee milk to drink. I normally get it in bottles for the convenience of being able to reseal them easily, but this time I decided to get a small carton. They're a little cheaper and I expected to have it drunk before I got to the train anyway. I was looking through the cartons and found one that had a straw attached to it, so I figured I'd get that one. Just then, I saw a large carton (1L instead of 500ml) of the same drink for only about 10-20 yen more. I thought this odd, but remembered a conversation that Chris, Dan, and myself had the morning before. Apparently most Japanese people will buy the size appropriate to their need rather than getting the most bang for their buck. They said that one person, when offered two sizes for the same drink at the same price, took the smaller size. When asked why, they simply replied that they weren't thirsty enough to get the bigger size, even if it was the same price. I figured this must be another case of that - with the coffee milk company giving a break to families that need more coffee milk than the single person getting it for themselves. Unfortunately, at every other convenience store I went to the price was significantly higher... so maybe it was just on sale or something. Oh well. :-)

So I got back to the train, went to my hotel, and just relaxed. I was super tired at this point, so I just decided to take it easy. I took a shower and soaked in the big tub they had. I celebrated my birthday with some Haagen Dazs ice cream from the floor's vending machine and watched some TV. I think I had some time to write a blog post too, but since I was behind it was for some other time than today (obviously).

Tune in tomorrow as I make my way to Osaka and visit the Zoo, Denden street, and my hostel room!