Japan Holiday, July 23 (Simian Summit)

First and last full day to spend in Kyoto. I'm enjoying the hotel in Kyoto much more for two reasons: 1) coin operated laundry 2) free breakfast! As long as I've got those two things, free internet and a refrigerator the rest doesn't really matter. The free buffet (help yourself) breakfast was fantastic too, lots of baked items: bread rolls, plain and chocolate croissants as well as salad, rice and cereal. They even made a couple of the vending machines free (like how they make the arcade machines free, only you get drinks!) which had these neat blue and purple soft drinks - blueberry and grape would be a good guess.

Having been in pain for five straight days I decided to take the heel support out of my shoe, I suspect it's actually been doing more damage than good.

So I was in charge for the day, since I think I was the only person who did some research, and that normally wouldn't be a problem except we're relying on the dreaded bus for the first time today! As I've probably mentioned during the USA trip the bus has one fatal flaw - the only time you know you've reached your stop is as you're driving on past it. Got on the correct bus for Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion) and after doing a loop of Gion it felt like we were heading in the right direction. As I started seeing signs for Golden Pavilion it became a test of patience to not jump off to early, and by some luck we got out right on time.

Kinkakuji was an impressive temple, it was a shame it's not a place you can go inside, you can't even touch the gold leaf walls :( Tried to land some coins in the pot but failed miserably at that - the one yen coins are about as light as a feather though, which doesn't help. After checking out the area we're back on another bus to Nijo, which was a lot easier to work out, to get on the train bound for Arashiyama - the public transport system is not as good as in Osaka.

Golden Pavilion, if you hadn't guessed. It's actually quite small.

Coin toss thing, not sure how people miss by so much.

At Arashiyama there was a small visitor centre where we got a local map and directions to the bamboo forest. We were told to take a right, but it probably should have been a right after that first right. So we went in the wrong direction but ended up at the other place I wanted to see while we were here. In order to get across to Mt. Arashiyama you have to cross the Togetsukyo Bridge. Apparently it's some famous and romantic bridge crossing, but I did not get that at all, see for yourself below.

A bridge too far.

Across the bridge was Iwatayama Monkey Park and everybody loves monkeys! The monkeys are all waiting for us at the very top of the mountain, so we have to climb this thing in the middle of the day. It was so exhausting but because my foot was feeling better than it had all week I actually enjoyed the challenge. At the top thankfully there was some shade and air-conditioning. The monkeys were climbing around the hut and waiting to be fed, which is about all that monkeys do, except for circus tricks.

Monkeys!

After going back down and across the bridge the bamboo forest wasn't too far away. The bamboo entry on wikipedia even has a photo of this place, so there you go. I was hoping to see some panda's in the forest but no luck there.

Got back to Kyoto via this train/tram/light rail thing, which only had one carriage and fits about 40 people at most. Tried to do some shopping in the downtown area before we depart but didn't find a whole lot as with Osaka. If I can't even find something to buy myself then other people are surely going to be displeased when they get no gifts.

For dinner I ordered a three cheese pizza, not exactly traditional but it was the only thing I could see on the menu that was vegetarian. Wrong. It was more like one cheese and some kind of meat that looked like ham.