Bamboo, Monkeys and Nishiki Market

Sooo.. there's supposed to be a typhoon coming. So far the weather has behaved but we were worried our time in Kyoto would be ruined. There's so much to do and see and rain would seriously ruin it. Today Ori and I planned on going to the Arashiyama Bamboo grove. We both had been looking forward to going there, and rain... well, it wasnt in Ori's plan book. I guess whats not in the plan is not to happen - the day was great! 

We arrived at Arashiyama and walked towards the bamboo grove entrance. So many bamboo trees. We tried getting photos of us alone and not with the other tourists, not too easy to do We continued walking and then we saw the real grove. When we first walked in, I have to admit to being slightly disappointed. Yes, there were many bamboo trees, but there were also other trees interspersed among them. It ruined it for me, on different levels. On the first level, I thought I would be seeing only bamboo. On the second level, it didnt fit with my thoughts on Japanese culture and what I had learned thus far. I expected a grove keeper to go around the grounds all day picking out all the non-bamboo saplings. We continued walking and as we entered the second part of the grove my impression improved immensely. Everywhere we looked - bamboo. That's what I had in mind when reading about the bamboo grove. Not that the first part was disappointing but the second part was sooo much better. Pure bamboo - everywhere. And so tall - all you can see right, left and up is bamboo. 

Here too we thought we would get bombarded by fellow tourists, but as you can see from the photos, it wasnt that bad. Or at least thats how it was while we were there. As we were leaving to go to the monkey mountain the tourist buses arrived and with them the hoards of people.

Someone "up there" is smiling on us on our honeymoon and making sure we enjoy ourselves - thank you :)

We crossed the bridge towards the mountains and were stopped by the beautiful scenery around us. 

The leaves are changing colours at different stages. 

We continued up the mountain to another fun afternoon of climbing in humid humid weather.

I dont know how many stairs there were but we got to 160 meters height. 

We finally got up to the top of the mountain. I had to push Ori up the last few steps cause he just couldnt handle the stairs anymore (hehe). But it was worth the climb. Not only are the monkeys crazy cool, observing them in their natural habitat was lots of fun. Contrary to other animal observation sights, such as the zoo, it is the humans who are in the closed quarters and the monkeys are on the outside. In order to see them upclose, we had to step into a hut in the middle of the top of the hill. The windows were all covered with nets of which the holes are only big enough for the monkeys to stick in their hands. Role reversal at its finest. We bought a bag of cut bananas and got to feed them. COOOOLLL. Everyone got super excited once one of the monkeys picked up the banana or peanut straight out of their hands - from the very young to the old (yes much older than Ori and I). 

The view of the city was all open to us. Too bad it was still a bit overcast so we couldnt see too clearly.

Climbing down was much easier.

As we got down it started to drizzle a bit and when we got on the bus to the city centre it began to really pour. We decided it was the perfect time to go visiting the Nishiki Market (fully covered).

Think Carmel Market only much cleaner, more organized, no one screaming, and lots of unidentified animals and fruits on sale. Im sure that there was a time when this was a local market, but i dont imagine it can be called that anymore. There were very few Japanese people walking around, and I imagine that those that were there were also tourists. It was very upscale and aimed at tourists. 

Walking about, we were offered a try of jelly candies, the kind used for tea ceremonies. The owner asked us where we're from and when we told him Israel, he immediately smiled and said - shalom, toda, lehitraot. He then went to the back where he took out a booklet, and asked us to wait. He found the right page and started reading - hayom, etmol, machar, and counting in numbers in hebrew. Turns out it was a phrase book in many different languages. 

Well, as we taught the vendor - machar is another day. 

Tomorrow to Fushimi-Inari - the temple made of a thousand Torri (yup, turns out I've been spelling it wrong all this time. Oops.) 

Hello Kyoto

Our first morning in Kyoto started out a little overcast and chillier than we were used to, but that was better than the typhoon we had been warned about coming our way. We started out the morning in Higashiyama south and later headed to Higashiyama north. It was a full day of temples, temples and more temples. All beautiful in its own way. All difficult to get to on their own level - stairs and more stairs and usually up a mountain. 

Knee problems? Thats for the faint of heart and not for those wanted to see the culture and history of Kyoto. 

I knew that Kyoto was the area to spot Geishas (and pretend to be one), but I didnt undertand how many people actually did it - until today. When preparing for the trip, both Ori and I read that there were  shops one could go to in order to get the Geisha experience - dress, make up, riksha, photographers - different packages for different pockets. And there is the same thing for men (in a male version of the Kimono and minus the make up). Who knew so many people actually wanted that experience. Kimono dressed women were all over old Kyoto. Everywhere we looked, there was another one, each with hair more elaborate than the next. 

We were worried about doing the route on a Saturday as we are not fans of big lines (who is?) and have been lucky to have missed the main tourist season. But because of the rain that was forecast, we didnt want to chance missing out on anything. We were lucky that while there were people, we still were able to enjoy the views an the temples. 

The first temple we arrived at, we started walking up the stairs and were approached by a young woman who introduced herself as Yuma. Yuma is studying English and offered to give us a free tour of the temple. As this offer worked wonderfully last time (in the garden in Okayama with the retired army general), I figured- why not? Well, I guess we did a good deed and let her give us a tour but her knowledge of the place leaves a little room for improvement. 

On with the day. Though i mentioned it started cloudy, the day quickly got hotter. and the humidity! OMG. I don't think I've mentioned the humidity in this country and is doing you a disservice. Its humid! Really humid. You think its hot, but its really the humidity that gets you. And when youre climbing up stairs and hiking up mountains, well the humidity only gets worse. 

We walked passed many stands selling ice cream. And unless youve been to Japan, i dont know if youll know this, but they love everything with green tea. Especially ice cream. So we stopped at a tiny little ice cream stand and i asked to taste the - pumpkin and chestnut concoction. It was really cool. Pumpkin ice cream and a chestnut preserve and then some more ice cream. It tasted interesting but... I was going to order something and the man suggested green team ice cream - his is unlike all the others. The others, he said, all use green food colouring. His, he went on to boast, uses real green tea powder. Ok, if you insist. It too was ok. Im glad I tried it, and made Ori take a taste off of mine, but I dont think ill be reordering it. 

We then continued to the North and walked on the philospher's path. We stopped along the way to look at Japanese house robes (sooo comfortable) and ended up trying on a Kimono (trully accidentally). One second Im looking at patterns and the next moment this old woman is wrapping me in a kimono and barking at Ori to get his camera out. 

Walking around the grounds of Nunzenji temple, we found a magical little place that seemed totally out of place in Japan, I thought it seemed more European in architecture. We waited a bit until the Japanese girls finished their photo session (they never end!) and took some shots on our own. Then came this lovely Japanese man who offered to take a few shots of us together. He had so much patience and waited until others were out of the background. He even gave a shout to some who rudely stepped in (so uncharacteristic of Japanese, but lovely lovely man). I love this shot!

The philosophers path was a real experience. Ori was really excited about walking in the path of philosophers. Can you imagine the decisions that were made walking these stones. 

Hungry after a day of walking climbing and pondering the meaning of life, we settled on Udon at a convenient place. Never do that! Its never good to decide on a place to eat in a hurry when youre hungry. It was not great, to say the least. We crossed the street to walk back to the hotel and what do we see through the glass window of a restaurant? A man hand making udon. We walked in out of curiosity and we saw that they also made vegetarian tempura - many different kinds. And even chicken tempura. All in different oil containers. Awesome. You might recall that in an earlier post I mentioned how difficult it is for me to find meals because of everything containing pork. It seems as if in Kyoto, its the same. I thought that gioza, or dumplings would come with different ingredients, but thats not to be. But tempura - well, you'd think that too wouldn't be an issue. But that seems to be always with shrimp. Well, this place is a heaven sent place for me. Fresh Udon, no pork soup, and veggie tempura. Tastes great, and did I mention cheap? And all the patrons were locals, not one tourist face around (other than ours) We were coming back for a late dinner (the earlier udon was a late lunch and was so tiny, and unappetising, it could not be called dinner).

We did end up coming back after a brief rest and it was worth it - and a half. Highly recommended. And they were all so very nice. A real mom and pop kind of place. 

After that we called it a night. Happy stomachs, happy travelers.