THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN III: HOW I WAS FEEDING MONKEYS AND DEER
- coupkovasvatava
- Jun 5, 2017
- 2 min read
Auntie managed to get a few days off, a long weekend, hooray! We met her in Kyoto, which mum is completely enthralled by. Why I don´t know.
At first we climbed Fushimi Inari, the Shinto shrine with thousands of orange “torii” gates. It was Saturday and there were millions of people who were walking super slowly, awful! Everybody can buy their gate there, as big as they want, and make a wish for it. Auntie said there was someone who had maybe 30 of those – I guess he needed something really bad. Mum and I bought a little wooden board and we wrote our wish on it so hopefully it will come true one day.
Then sitting on the ground we tasted some local goodies – takoyiaky balls, which is octopus in dough, and crab meat on a stick, which was hot twice – and went to look at the temple… There were even more people. On the steps to the Lover´s stones my hat fell off and before auntie or mum noticed it was gone. I don´t really understand why someone steals a kids hat, but in Japan everything is possible I think. Anyway it was too small already, so what.
The next day it was hot like hell so we went to Arashiama, which is basically a part of Kyoto. On one hill there live monkeys that you can feel. But first you have to shut yourself in a cage. Exactly, it sounds quite strange but there are no animals but people encaged. So once you are in the cage, you buy yourself a banana or peanuts and you go for it. From the hill we returned through the bamboo forest, rented a little boat and for a bit we were cruising on the river. I had never ridden a boat before so I could not judge much, but I think neither mum nor auntie were very good at paddling.
Nara used to be the capital of Japan and there are parks and many temples. In Todaiji there is a huge Buddha´s statue and next to it a wooden post with the hole which is as big as Buddha´s nostril. Who sneaks through it will reach nirvana in their next life. Performing that I didn´t even need to bend my head :-). In the park we bought ourselves sakura ice-cream and special biscuits and even before we took them out from our pockets semi-wild deer, who live there in bulk, were rushing to us. At first it resembled a horror movie a little bit but eventually it was a good fun.
Everything nice comes to an end and thus finished auntie´s holiday. It is only mum and I again and tomorrow we are heading further – where else than to mountains again :-).
Your Annie
Some facts
When: 2. - 6. 6. 2017 Where: Chitose - Osaka - Kyoto - Arashiama - Nara (Japan) How: plane, train (boat :-)) How long: 2 hr. + a few more hours on the trains How far: 1 063 + 45 + 43 km = 1 151 km
