Arashiyama Monkey Park + Kinkaku Ji (嵐山猿パーク + 金閣寺)

Somewhere in May, me and a bunch of friends travelled to Arashiyama (嵐山) for some sightseeing. I've been to Arashiyama before once on my exchange. This was in autumn, back when the leaves were all those beautiful colors. I didn't have the time to see everything that day though so I was happy to be back again.



Arashiyama is a place in the western part of Kyoto. It's a little under an hour away from where I live and there is a lot of pretty things to see there!

As you may or may not remember, last time I went to see the bamboo forest and the Tenryū-ji(天龍寺).

This time, I really wanted to visit the monkey park!

Yes, there is a monkey park! Monkeys are some of my favorite animals, if not, my favorite, so I was incredibly excited to go.

The place in Arashiyama is not so much a park than it is a big hill full of the fury things. The monkeys roam free and shouldn't be dangerous as long as you don't bother them. There is a little wooden house you can enter and buy healthy snacks for the monkeys and you can feed it to them through the bars.

me and my fury friend were having a moment

It was really fun to see monkeys up close like this. I just love watching them, especially the expressions on their human-like faces. I loved it!  I just wish I had a better camera to capture it!

Aren't they amazing??

We hung around the little playground next to the park for a while before our group split up and people went to do their own things.

Me, my boyfriend and one other friend went to visit the Kinkaku-ji. I saw this temple five or six years ago with my family but I remembered I loved it so much that I really wanted to go back and see it a second time. I also learned a lot about this particular temple in my Japanese art class of last semester, which was another reason of my return.




 

I was a little surprised at how many people were there, but the temple still looked amazing. The name kinkaku comes from the gold leaf that is used in the making of the building (金 or kin meaning gold) The temple has three floors, each with their own style. The top one, for example looks a lot more detailed and lavish than the ones below. That one is my favorite and is heavily inspired by the Chinese zen style. The building is topped off with a bronze phoenix statue as well.

When I came to the Kinkaku Ji all those years ago, I bought an Omamori for myself. Omamori are little luck charms you can get at temples. The have them in many different categories like, 'good luck on the road', 'good luck finding love', 'good health' etc...

I bought one for 'making a wish come true'. My wish for this Omamori was for me to be able to come to Japan for a long time and to become fluent in the language. It was really nice to come back to this place now that that wish has come true. I felt really happy and really proud of what I'd accomplished. I bought some Omamori this time as well, but in buying them as presents for other people, I forgot to buy a new one for myself (idiot)! I want to make a new goal for myself and have a new Omamori to go with it, but I suppose I'll have to buy it at the next temple I visit.

I'm going to leave it at this.. because I need to work on my bachelor paper (T_T)

Toodelooh!

I still go to school!

I realize I never talked about how the second semester of school started. We're already over halfway through by now but oh well. I'm going to tell you anyways.

I'm still taking the mandatory Japanese classes four times a week. I don't really like them but at least they aren't as crazy difficult as the ones in my school in Belgium. Honestly, these classes are way too easy. But I shouldn't complain. I just hope I haven't forgotten how to properly study because I still need to retake some Japanese exams when I get back home.

Aside from Japanese I picked three other classes from a list.

One is Kendo, which I love! This is the follow up of the Naginata class I had last semester. Kendo and Naginata are both martial arts. The most notable difference between the two is that the stick you fight with in Kendo is much shorter than the staff-like stick in Naginata. I think I prefer Naginata in the end, just because I think it looks more elegant BUT I'm really enjoying Kendo as well!

The world championship Kendo was held last week in Tokyo and for this event, the New Zealand national team came to our school for a while to practice before the actual event. This, because my teacher, Alexander Bennet, coaches the team. We were actually lucky enough to watch the team train and to even train with them and learn from them. That was a really cool experience!

The second class I chose is a class about Geisha. I picked this one because I realized that, even though I'd seen geisha walk around Kyoto, I knew virtually nothing about them and the things I thought I knew were most likely wrong assuptions. The class is taught by this Canadian guy who's job is to hire geisha for other people. He's supposedly the best foreigner geisha expert in the world. He worked on the movie Memoirs of a Geisha as an advisor but he despises the actual film. We watched it in class as he pointed out every single thing he hated about it, which was pretty amusing. At the end of the semester we're going to have a real geisha party too, which is a ridiculously cool opportunity and I'm really excited for it!!

Lastly, I chose a class called Learning Kansai. To be honest, I didn't really know what this class would be about but I picked it because it fitted great in my weekly schedule, plus it was taught by Alexander Bennet so I figured it would be cool.

I now call this class: the vegetable class.

Why you ask?

Basically, this class is a collaboration of Japanese students and exchange students. We got paired into groups and now we have to grow and sell vegetables. I'm not kidding. On the weekend, we travel to the countryside and do farming. I quite like this because it's a lot more fun than sitting in class listening to a lecture. However, on Monday we sit in class and discuss business techniques to sell our vegetables. It's all very business/economy related and I don't understand any of it! On top of that it is taught entirely in Japanese. I mean, I wouldn't even know what they were talking about if it were taught in English or Dutch, let alone Japanese. So yeah, that's... something else..

But I'm having fun! I don't have that much class since I do need to work on my graduation paper.

That's about it.

 Bye!!!!!

Universal studios and cosplay and Attack on Titan

So I enjoy going to Universal Studios Japan. It is under an hour away from my dormitory and it has a Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Needless to say, I go a lot. I think I've been over ten times by now for sure. Anyways, I went again, a few weeks back, but this time completely dressed up!

I often dress up as a Hogwarts student from Harry Potter when I go (nerd alarm) but this time, me and my friends wanted to do something more.

So Japan really likes playing dress up. I'd always figured this was an overstatement made by foreigners.. until I came to actually live here. People here really do dress up for the most random occasions.  In USJ or Disneyland for example, I feel like the vast majority of people are in costume. Some just wear a hat and some face paint, some groups of people come dressed in their superhero onesies, but a lot of people actually come in full cosplay as if they were on their way to some anime convention. Even more impressive is when I go into the big city for shopping or whatever: there will always be groups of (mostly) young girls dressed flashy group outfits. Everyone wears exactly the same, or they'll be wearing the same but each in a different color, like a contemporary Power Ranger squad! And no one in the street raises an eyebrow at them. It's just normal here. I find this really interesting and kind of cool. I mean, it's fun to look at! Why don't we do more of this in Europe?

I got carried away there, back to the story. Yes. I went to USJ dressed up as.. well, I don't really know who I was. Brunette Alice in Wonderland maybe? (I just found this wig and dress incredibly cheap online so yeah....)

Do you even recognize me?

Fun fact: the people at the gates of USJ wouldn't let me in at first because I didn't look like the girl in the picture on my annual pass. I told them I was wearing a wig like three times but they were so suspicious hahaha! Actually, a lot of people thought this was my real hair and that I'd just gotten a haircut. Nope, just a really cheap wig from Amazon!

Incredible Attack on Titan display

People who are into anime or manga will definitely know the immensely popular 進撃の巨人 or Attack on Titan. It's famous all over the world but as well in the land of origin. Universal Studio's just opened a new attraction for their park dedicated to the series. I personally didn't like the flow of the anime much but I do really love the initial concept and the titans look really bad ass so I really wanted to go check it out!

The story of Attack on Titan in a nutshell: Giant scary titans versus the small remainder of the human population.

The attraction itself is more of an exhibition than anything else but it's fun if you're a fan of the show. Outside the building, they also have this gigantic set up of titans which is really impressive looking! Lastly, you can get your picture taken with a titan, as if you were about to get eaten by one, which of course we had to do.

from another time we went USJ.. I told you, I go a lot

We got eaten by the titan, but I still look fabulous

Oh, one more thing! USJ has been obsessed with Minions lately! They had a new Minion store with tons and tons of merch and even Minion themed pop corn!

After that fun day we took some pictures with Harry, of course ^^

And then, when we got back to the dorm we got into this huge cake throwing war.. but let's not get into that. That was weird. 

 

Okay, until next time! ♥♥♥