Arashiyama, The Monkey Park, and The Purple Sanga

Dan and I had a fantastic day last Sunday. We started off by taking the train into Kyoto and heading over to the northwest side to a neighborhood called Arashiyama. We've heard of this place a lot lately, because it's supposed to be a great place to see fall leaves(apparently people here are just as excited about the fall leaves as they are about cherry blossoms). The other reason we had heard about Arashiyama is because a coworker told us about a monkey park that is there. So that, not the leaves is really what brought us to that side of town. I am glad we went there though, because it was beautiful. It is nestled into the mountains and has a big river running through town.

Here is one of the main streets. It was really cute, lined with touristy shops and food stands.

There was some celebration going on and there were people playing drums and dancing. Near that stuff was this crazy thing. It was so high you couldn't see the end of it.

This is the area you can rent boats.

This is after we got to the monkey park. After you enter you have to climb a mountain. Along the way, we saw a few peaceful monkeys looking quite normal and as if they were in their natural habitat.

This is the opposite of that. At the top of the long winding trail, you come to a clearing and see this. The building is a giant cage, not for monkeys, but for people. You go in and feed the monkeys through the fencing. We bought a small bag of sliced bananas. There were also peanuts and apples, but we figured monkeys should be eating bananas.

This is a view from inside. The monkeys would straight up reach towards people who had food. They are so human-like it's crazy!

Here are some on the move. They were fighting for positions. We were trying to feed the babies, bu the big guys weren't having it.

This monkey just received a nice piece o' banana from Dan. He had them taking the food right out of his hands.

Outside the cage there were amazing views of Kyoto.

Here is us among the monks.

After the monkeys, we headed over to the Purple Sanga game. They are Kyoto's professional soccer team. Here is Dan with his dog on a stick and his Asahi.

This was the crazy fan section. They chanted the entire game. Many of the chants went to the tune of old American songs.

This is the field with a pretty view of the sunset. The empty section across the field is the visitors section.

This is us having a fun time.

This is us having a fun time after it got really cold.

We had a really fun time and recommend the monkey park to anyone coming to visit.

At my mom's request

So my mom asked that I take some more pictures of the house and what we see from it. They might not be as exciting to other people, but I understand. Here they are...

This is looking directly out the door at the side of that "restaurant" next door. There used to be a bunch of bushes and stuff, so you couldn't see it as much, but City Hall had people cut it down.

This is the view if you turn left out of the door and look at the street.

This is our door.

This is our gate and the house directly across the street. The dentists office is right next door to it to the left.

This is our house from the street.

This is looking down the street. Our house is on the left, the dentists office has the blue sign and City Hall is the enormous building past that.

This was on my morning bike commute to Hayama Junior High School.

This is also the morning commute.

Halloween

So I really missed Halloween this year, but I was fortunate enough to be working with teachers that wanted me to share the joys of the wonderful holiday with the Japanese students.

This picture is hideous, but it was too funny not to share with the world. This is in the AM, just after I completed making the hat and right before I had to get dressed for work.

Here are the Jack o'lanterns I made with a couple students.

Kurama to Kibune

A couple weeks ago, Dan and I went on a hike from a town called Kurama to a town called Kibune. It was up north of Kyoto about a half an hour and the train ride up was beautiful. In Kurama we climbed up a mountain to a shrine and then hiked across a ridge to Kibune.

This is Kurama. At the end of the street are the begining of the stairs that we climbed for quite a while.


The temple at the top had great views of the surrounding mountain range.

Here is an example of that.

Here is the temple(Kurama-dera)

This is Yoshitsune Seekurabe-ishi. It is height comparing rock that Minamoto Yoshitsune used to measure his height before he went to join the Minamoto clan.

These are some crazy roots we saw along the way.

This is a pretty waterfall at the end in Kibune.

Elementary Japan

There have been a couple Fridays the past month that I was assigned an Elementary school for a half of a day. I didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be fun and the students were so cute! I also only worked a half day, which was nice.

Here the principal and I are showing an example of how to say "Hello. It's nice to meet you." and then shake hands. You can see the Michigan banner I brought on the board.

Here I am trying to get the students to say the phrases to each other in English.



I ate lunch with one of the classes. This little girl talked the whole time!

At one point I was left alone with this bear.