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.
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| 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!
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