My day started off early, I was actually out the door by 7:30am and walked to Kyoto station to take a train to Arashiyama. First, I hiked over to the bamboo forest because I heard if you don’t get there early it is SWARMED with tourists taking photos. Which is funny, because before social media that place was usually empty, except for people taking engagement photos or whatever professionally. Well, once again the secret is out, and it’s packed by 8am. R.I.P. Bamboo Forest and Nanzenji aqueduct, two cool places now taken over by Instagrammers!
After the forest, I went next door to Tenryuji, a temple on the edge of the mountains with a gorgeous koi pond and autumn leaves. Then I took a walk over the river bridge to Monkey Mountain, which is now marked with lots of signs and pictures of baby monkeys. At least, that’s what we called it 15ish years ago, now it’s known as Iwatayama Park. Back then, it wasn’t advertised much, and the only way I found out about it was a local told me. Then to get there you had to get a hand drawn map, and the entrance wasn’t marked, and you had to walk 20 minutes or so uphill on these stairs that were falling apart with no railings, and finally when you got to the top there was a small shack where YOU went inside if you wanted to feed the monkeys. There were a few benches, and an open area to see the monkeys. The rest was all forest for the monkeys to go to where they wanted. Now they expanded the shack to include toilets and an office and to accommodate that they brought in electrical power lines up the mountain, they built a second path to control the crowds going in and out (because the crowds are crazy now compared to then…I saw more people there just today than I did the other dozen times I’ve been there combined!) and paved portions of it, they put in rest areas and a playground for kids, more benches for people to sit, they do a “feeding” show to lure the monkeys out, and worse they destroyed a lot of the woods behind the shack so tourists could go up closer to the monkeys. So, more tourists (particularly kids), more feeding, less forests, leads to a population explosion. The troop up there used to be about 50, now there are over 120. When I was there before, I didn’t have any concerns about the monkeys. They were happy, healthy, “friendly”, and in great shape. Today, there were several that looked like they had some sort of urinary tract infection going on, three that had back legs they wouldn’t put on the ground like they were broken or twisted, and they were constantly fighting. The keepers (now 5 instead of just 2) said it was because it was mating season, which is true I suppose; but I can barely recall infighting before when they were one troop. Now their population is so big they’ve separated into multiple troops and have less area to live in, which is likely the bigger reason why they were almost constantly fighting. It’s still a great place for photos, but it made me really uncomfortable seeing it now versus my memory of how it was before. I have to say it broke my heart a little, that mountain was one of my favorite places in Japan. I went almost once a month, weather depending, when I lived here. I have so many photos of the monkeys from 15+ years ago, I was looking at the adult monkeys to try and recognize any of them since they can live up to 30 years, but I guess I’m not that good with monkey identification, I didn’t spot anyone I knew. Anyway, I walked back down and hopped on a bus to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion.
If I thought the crowds were bad here before they are insane now, thousands of people were in the park grounds. It wasn’t unexpected, Kinkakuji was always crowded even back then. However, this time double decker mega tour buses were coming 3 or 4 at a time and dumping hundreds of people off all at once. It was a never ending stream, and took some patience to get photos. I got it done and made my way around the grounds to exit, except they changed it. The mega buses must have been enough of a problem that they plowed a big part of the trees at the exit and turned it into a tour bus parking lot. Buses were pulling in and out of the cramped space and there wasn’t really a separate walkway for people. As I was trying to exit, I passed by where the handicap taxis were on the right and they were unloading a young girl into her wheelchair. Just as I and a couple others were about to walk past, a mega bus whipped into the lot and pulled forward so fast we all had to stop in between two handicap taxis where they were trying to unload the girl. As the bus pulled forward the driver paid so little attention what was going on anywhere but in front of him he actually side swiped the handicap taxi, pushing it into all of us waiting on the ground and almost squishing us between the two taxis where we were sandwiched. There was nowhere to go, so when the taxi he hit started being shoved sideways all we could do was jump away and fall into each other. Fortunately the dad of the handicap girl had the instinct to grab her out of the wheelchair before we all were pushed into it, and everyone grabbed each other to support one another so no one actually fell. It was the passengers on the bus yelling at the driver that actually got him to stop, and so we all walked away unharmed even though the taxi took some damage. After we all checked that everyone was okay and the bus was repositioned out of the way, I stuck around for a couple minutes just to make sure we weren’t needed for an accident report or anything, then moved along.
Up to that point I was kind of sad about the crowds, but wasn’t letting it damper my mood and actually felt like I was having a good day; once that happened though I was really sour and although my next stop was going to be Ryoanji I decided I was done with mega bus crowds and wanted to go to Nishiki Market. So I walked to the bus stop and waited almost half an hour for a bus Google Maps said I should take that kept not coming and when it finally did come and I hopped on, it wound up going in the complete opposite direction I needed to go and then ended just a few stops down. I’ve realized that unlike everywhere else modern in the world, Kyoto doesn’t sync its bus system with Google Maps…neither its routes nor timetable, so Google Maps so far has been roughly 40% accurate on getting me from point A to point B. No biggie, just FYI if you ever come here. When the bus route ended, I checked my map to figure out where the heck he brought me. Well, turns out he took me right near Ryoanji. I figured if the transportation gods really wanted me to be at a Zen temple today then I may as well go in. Since it was almost the end of the day it was pretty quiet with only a few dozen people. It was a nice, quiet stroll through the trees and rock garden. After that, I got on the CORRECT bus and made it to Nishiki Market.
It was almost closing time, so I raced through to check it out. I wound up in a cat specific store where everything was cat based. In Japan, cats are welcome and black cats are considered good luck. So there are stores with nothing but black cat merchandise, and stores like this one that only sell cat themed stuff. Of course I had to go in, and I ended up buying like $70 worth of stuff. The two shopkeepers were super friendly, and I hung out for a while just laughing and chatting with them and showing each other photos of our cats at home. By the time my orders were done, the market had definitely closed and only a few stores were left open. I did stop by a grilled crab place that was still open, got some Udon at a cheap stand up shop, and then walked down the regular shopping district for a bit.
It was almost 7pm by then and I was tired, so I headed to where Google Maps again said I should go to get a bus to my hotel. I got on the bus, and it immediately turned the opposite direction I needed to go and went over half a mile before it stopped again. Uggggghh…between waiting for and riding the wrong bus my 5 minute ride to the hotel turned into a 30 minute detour. I had to walk all the way back to where I was to begin with. I had been eyeing the Baskin Robbins there before I took the wrong bus, so this time I decided to go in. I got this mint and chocolate concoction and realized after I started eating it that it had Poprocks in it and not minty things. It was the weirdest feeling, but kinda cool. After eating, I went back to the bus stop and got on the CORRECT bus back to my hotel. I logged almost 15km today, my feet are so done!
