Have you prayed for electromagnetic radiation today?

Well, have you? I’m sure this guy has:

After my trip to Asuka, the next two weeks flew by, mostly thanks to a bunch of tests, homesickness causing me to not want to do much of anything, and Typhoon 18, which only inconvenienced me in that it kept me from sleeping and made me wait around for class forever the next day.

Thankfully, there was another holiday coming up. What was it for? Health and Sports day! We got another Monday off. In celebration, we planned a little trip for Saturday.

At 10 a.m., we set off for Kyoto, changing train lines in the heart of the city at Gion-Shijo station. We could already tell it was going to be another lovely day as we headed down to catch the other train line.

After about an hour and a half trip, we reached our destination – Arashiyama, the famous mountain whose bamboo forest has graced the back of Japanese postcards for years and years.

By this time, we were a little hungry, so we stopped at the Mini Stop and grabbed some lunch. A couple of lucky pigeons got a little lunch too, because Cailyn was willing to give up a little bit of her sandwich.

I pulled out my guidebook and we headed down the street we thought was the most likely to take us over to the main stretch of town. Along the way, we ran into an awesome temple, Horenji. It wasn’t mentioned at all in my Lonely Planet guide, being a small place.

Why was this temple, amazing, you ask? Well, because of this shrine:

Close up:

Do you know who is on that plaque? Why, it’s Thomas Alva Edison, along with Hertz, who is honored here at Dendengusha shrine, which, from the main temple’s sign, is “dedicated to protecting electricity and electromagnetic radiation.” Needless to say, we stopped here to thank the “gods” of electricity before moving on. Lonely Planet, how could you have missed that?

And just a stone’s throw from Dendengusha was our next stop – the Monkey Park!

My guidebook said how steep the climb to the top of the park was, but we weren’t quite prepared for it, having to stop a couple of times after climbing over 9,000 stairs. We did find some cool things on the way though.

The view from the top of the park was spectacular, a panoramic scene of Kyoto.

Did I mention these little guys were up there too?

While we climbed up the mountain, a few monkeys joined us on our hike. However, we had no idea there would be this many waiting for us at the top. We were told not to feed them, make direct eye contact and especially not touch them.

They were just chilling out there, admiring the view with us and scavenging for food on the ground. People can go inside the building and get some nuts to feed them with, which has to be done through those windows like in the picture above.

We didn’t feed them, but we spent plenty of time taking pictures of them and watching them fight and groom each other, occasionally taking a break to get a drink at the koi pond. One of the workers tried to get one to come over and be in a picture with the three of us, but as soon as his treat hit the ground, the little guy snatched it away and ran off to eat it by himself.

After trekking back down the mountain, we crossed the famous bridge to head to the bamboo forest. The bridge was packed with tourists, gaijin and Japanese alike.

We decided a castle (preferably Howl’s moving one) should be on top of the hill in the middle here:

We took a stroll through the garden of the big temple at Arashiyama, Tenryu-ji.

The garden exited right into the entrance to the famous bamboo forest.

I can’t explain how beautiful and mystical it feels to walk through that path. It was something that felt like quintessential Japan. Anyone that comes here needs to experience that forest.

Unfortunately, everyone else in the country also holds this view, and so it was extremely crowded. We took refuge in Okochi-sanso villa, home to a famous samurai actor, where we were also served tea. He was even rich enough to have a private shrine on his estate.

And a moss garden:

After our tea, it was getting late, so we decided to head back home. Crossing back over the famous bridge, we saw something unbelievable:

My first rainbow in Japan, complementing the already perfect scenery. I was so excited.

When I got home, my aching feet informed me that they wanted the next day off. Probably not a horrible idea, since I had a ridiculous number of tests coming up the next week anyway.