Last day of freedom! Spent it climbing a bloody great hill to hang with some simian buddys and hunting down some of Kyotos finest Irish bars for my 3rd Stag do!
Looking for a nice way to start the day, Emma and I checked out the nearby Mister Donut for breakfast, twas good but no Krispy Kreme!
Dropped by Bic Camera too for a new power adapter. We were a little early and ended up waiting outside for it to open like true geeks!
All donuted and shopped out, we met up with the folks and made our way to todays destination, Arashiyama!
It was a little rainy today which seemed like a perfect reason to seek out the shelter of the Bamboo forest
This is Nonomiya-Jinja, many god are enshrined here – one of them being a god of good match and marriage, very fitting!
Water ladels for purification
The fantastic Bamboo forest itself, a Panda would go nuts here!
Wall of bamboo
We headed through the forest to Kameyama-koen to follow the river along to Togetsu bridge
River boats passing, quite a cool sight
Walking down Hozu-gawa towards Togetsu bridge. Very quiet to today as it is the Emperors birthday. No rowboats which is probably a good thing after I did so well last time!
This boat is usually a restaurant moored in, interesting to see it closed up
Approaching the main street in Arashiyama
Crossing Togetsu bridge, Iwatayama Monkey Park beckons!
This way for the Monkeys!
The start of our ascent, having done it once before I was slightly prepared, but still found it challenging
Up we go…
Amy and Lucy setting the pace
Bob and Vicky making their ascent
Monkey located!
Many Monkeys Located!
As i’ve posted before, to feed the monkeys at Iwatayama, you have to enter a shed and feed them through wire. I jumped in there for a bit to feed/monkey around with the monkeys and see what I could get them to do, a few videos below:
Normal Feeding
Can you catch buddy?
Which one will you take? Oh ok both…
Greedy Monkey!
Took a few shots of the fantastic view which i’ll try to make into a panoramic at a later date.
The Monkeys local watering hole
We said goodbye to the Monkeys and descended back into Arashiyama to check out the delights of the shops. Found some cute local sweets in jars to use as table decorations/nibbles at the reception and Bob and I discovered this little place…
It’s a beef croquette stand, tried to ask if the have a Japanese name but the lady didn’t understand me
And here they are, yum! I could eat a bucket of these
Not far up the road I was tempted again by something called a ‘Roll Cake Sand’
Which looks like this, I went for Vanilla! sauce was disgusting by itself but all together it tasted great!
Tired and with the weather turning, we said goodbye to Arashiyama
Bob and I headed out hunting for a 7-11 near Kyoto Station
Success! and FFXIII Elixir get! Will post separately about this.
So now we parted company with the Ladies, who headed off to karaoke and we began our Irish bar hunt!
First stop, McLoughlin’s Irish Bar, nice place with great views across the Kamo-gawa
Next the Gael, great place, would’ve stayed all evening if the musician wasn’t having such technical failures!
Bob and his birru
Equipment problems, the place was tiny though he should’ve just asked us all to pipe down!
Next stop, Gnome! Bob was quite impressed I managed to find these places
And inside Gnome, quite quiet
We did try to find one last bar, K6 Irish without luck, don’t know if we went wrong or whether it was closed for the night. eitherway, we headed back for the station.
Bumped into an Elliott(Lucys car) lookalike!
Arrived home to my wife-to-be dressed in a giant Rilakkuma costume
Oh my…
Big day tomorrow!!!!!!!!
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