Monkey Magic!

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Before I go headlong into today's blog, I would like to let you all know that Jish is alive and well! He is being cared for by the nice people at the Kyoto bus company and tomorrow we get to pick him up. How happy are we? We honestly didn't expect to see him ever again but our wonderful guesthouse owner, Eimi (pronounced Amy), phoned up for us this morning and gave us the good news when we got back. I guess it's testament to the honesty of Japenese folk. When I told our fellow guests about it last night in the common room, one of them said how he had left his digital camera on the bus a couple of days ago but when he went to the bus company he was surprised to find it had been handed in too. Thanks to everyone who sent messages of support.

Our adventures today took to a place affectionately known as monkey mountain. It's more of a hill but just full of Japanese monkeys (that's their actual name, not just that they were monkeys from Japan!) and after paying a small entrance fee we found ourselves wandering up a steep, windy path through the woods. The surroundings were so peaceful that it was worth going there just to have a stroll but when the monkeys started popping up here and there, you somehow knew chaos wasn't far away.

There is a rule in the reserve that you don't feed the monkeys except in the designated area and this probably explains why the monkeys didn't come up and bother us at all. They would sit on the path in front of us and attempt to stare us out - probably some kind of territorial thing - but as long as you avert your eyes and keep going, they give up and move on.

When you get to the top and to the feeding area, it's a whole differnt story though. You climb quite high and then get to a caged area - this isn't for the monkeys, it's for you! Inside they have the air con running and in today's heat (about 32 degrees) it was welcome. They also sell apple pieces and monkey nut (how appropriate!) for only 100 yen a pop ( about 50p) and you get to hold it out for the monkeys to take. the window areas of the cage are open with wire mesh covering them. The monkeys basically hung onto this and stuck their arm through, hand held out, waiting to be given food. Some of them were getting a bit on the porky side though and so we tried feeding the smaller monkeys instead but this didn't work as the fat monkeys were obviosuly the more dominant ones. After a bit of pushing and shoving the fat ones generally won to our dismay. Ah well, what can you do?

The view from the top of Monkey mountain is also pretty impressive. You can see right over all of Kyoto and if you plonk yourself down on one of the benches in the viewing area and don't budge for a few minutes, the monkeys start coming closer to you and eventually pretend you're not there. It gave us a great chance to watch a couple of baby monkies playing under the watchful gaze of their over-protective mums. It was, all in all, a brilliant experience and I recommend it to anyone coming to the area.

After making our way back down the hill we ambled along the riverside and over the pretty bridge watching artists painting watercolour lanscapes inspired by the beatuiful scenery, whilst herons lazily fished in the tranquil waters. The rainy season hasn't started here yet so the river levels are very low. We stopped off for an ice cream but these were not your usual flavours - Glynn's was green tea and tofu ice cream, whereas I has a grey ice cream which was balck sesame seed flavour. They were truly delicious and mine was like eating a frozen Snickers bar - yum!

The day was still young and we had time to visit another area with a yet another nice shrine. This time it was unusual as in the shrine grounds there were hundreds upon hundreds of the traditional Japanese shrine gates line up one after another to form a fascinating avenue of colour. Each of these gates has been placed there by a business wishing to pray for good fortune. If you look at it another way, this shrine was basically one big advert for local businesses! We both really enjoyed it there and late afternoon as the sun is going down was a great time to visit.

Tonight we're heading out for a bit of food and some beers to celebrate Jish's return and Eimi has kindly donated the last bit of her bottle of Bailey's to me, so I'll be well away! If I have time later tonight, I'll try and post some more photos for you. Hope you're all well and having fun too!

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Comments

[Linda]

Phew!
I am pleased to hear Jish will be returning to Inspirado. It’s all very well that he should have his own little adventures – but you just know he’ll want to tell you all about them. Seeing as how it’s quite difficult to communicate with strangers without opposable thumbs or voice box, have you thought of letting him have a little note to give to anyone who might need to help him re-unite in future? (I expect he communicates with you by the power of “He’s our bear”)