(This entry is a continuation of this post!)
Hiroshi taught us how to use the bus (which came in super helpful, later in Hiroshima)!
We decided to head towards Kyoto Municipal Zoo, which was down the street from this epic gate:
We saw all kinds of animals that we hadn't seen before like red pandas (aw (not sure why some animals seemed super hot, it was a pretty mild day!)):
Zebras:
A tapir:
Giant salamander:
And this monkey:
I mean the one on the other side of the cage! This little guy was pressing the sequence 1-2-3-4-5-6 to get a treat. Very cool!
We also saw some familiar faces:
Also, man I WISH we got a picture of it, they had actual exhibits for a Chicken (which was actually a rooster, sitting in a branch of a tree...) and a Duck (yes, it only said "Duck")!
They also had this big pit in the middle of the place:
With a ton of monkeys playing with balls and on their jungle gym.
Some of them were pretty mangy and sickly looking. We watched them for a while and the noise kept building and building with little "chee chee" sounds, when all of a sudden we hear a huge, sudden, ROAR! and the other monkeys all fall silent. Out strolls this big guy (slightly right of the center of the image) - guess we know who the boss is!
There were college students drawing some of the animals, and most of them were very good.
The zoo was a little different than what I was used to seeing. For one, the animals were really close to the public:
For two, they didn't seem too concerned with creating realistic environments/habitats for each animal. I thought it was sad, but it was neat getting to see some animals I had never seen before.
I had explained to Hiroshi that I wanted to see the famous big Buddha, and he told us how to get there, but it was too far away to go today (it was more of a full day trip), so he took us on a beautiful walk to Kodaji Temple. We seemed to pass a lot of very rich private school areas and small temples. There were a lot of hills and school children (that loved to say "Helloooo!!" as we walked by and we always got a laugh if we said "Konichiwaaa!!").
Here are some of the views offered on our way (yes, that is our friend, Hiroshi at the bottom!):
Here's what was at the top of the stairs: By the way 1) there are a lot of stairs in Japan 2) good rule of thumb (Michael discovered in his travels): the more stairs there are to climb, the cooler the thing at the top of them will probably be.
We walked to the building to find out that it had closed. Fortunately Hiroshi spoke with the guy behind the counter into letting me step in for a minute and snap a few pictures:
I wished they showed the size better. A funny thing happened there. I snapped some pictures, and put my arms down, and felt completely in awe of that statue. I stared and stared and I don't know if I was staring for 2 minutes or a half an hour, but when I finally turned around there was a group of girls trying to peek into the temple and making eye contact with them snapped me back into reality.
Also noteworthy, we saw this very statue from the binoculars in Kyoto Tower the night before! This makes two giant statues this trip that we first saw from a very far distance that we unexpectedly got right up against!
We continued on our walk from Kodaji Temple towards Kiyomizu Temple and we got approached by two older Japanese ladies who asked if they could come with us and practice their conversational English. One of the ladies' names was Akiko (just like my sister-in-law!) but I don't remember the other one. They said they were English students and this was their first time holding a conversation - they were extremely nice and funny, and their English was really good! (Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of them, though they got ones of us!)
We walked up this epic steep hill lined with little shops. It was packed with people (though the crowds did not cause me to panic at all, the Japanese work together with the crowd and I freaking miss that) and we were having lots of fun chatting with Hiroshi (who knew book-perfect English but I think a lot of our slang and sarcasm got lost on him) and the ladies (who were extremely eager to learn and to teach us some Japanese as well!)
There was a black man hand-making ceramic pots in his windows that were freaking perfect (the pots, though the windows were pretty nice, too). People were handing out food samples that tasted amazing. In Japan, every shop we been to (and in this steep hill, every shop we walked by), and yes, this includes 7-11, the people working there would shout a greeting to us (I don't know how to type it, but I know what it sounds like and it probably means something like "Hello and welcome"..I miss that too!)
We also found a Studio Ghibli dedicated building (any Miyazaki fans out there?) that we geeked out in and bought souvenirs. (I was enjoying myself too much to take pictures on the way up, this picture is on the way down later in the day, when most of the shops were closing and the crowd was dying away):
We got to the temple and got in line to pay our admittance fee and said goodbye to the very sweet ladies.
Unfortunately, I again have to leave a cliffhanger for this day. The next entry will cover the rest of the day - there is too much to write at once and I definitely don't want to leave anything out!
