Just Hanging around in Kyoto.

I was in Kyoto for 3 nights, and took lots of time to see the history of the town.

Kyoto is filled with shrines, temples and monuments.
Kyoto is one of the oldest cities in Japan, and is absolutely filled with history. I spent a entire day walking around and seeing shrines and temples, some impressive then others, and all with people worshiping and praying in them. So it was not the place to be taking to many happy snaps.

While in Kyoto I caught up with some German's I met in Tokyo, completely at random we were in the same hostel at the same time, so we ended up seeing the nightlife in kyoto together as well.

The following day i went to the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, a 1000+ year old castle. Where the emperor use to live a 100 years ago.
The palace was full of lovely buildings with gold plated frameworks and bark roofs that take 20 years to replace and have to be replaced every 25 years... so was quite a impressive task.

The days in Kyoto were unbelievable HOT 35-40 oC and humid as.... so walking around the city was just a nightmare during the day.

The following day it started to cool off a little and i moved outside of the city to a town on the outskirts, where the famous bamboo walk and snow monkeys could be found. I rented a bike and peddled my way around as after 7 odd days of walking none stop i was starting to get tired of walking.

The Bamboo walk was impressive, a huge forest of bamboo trees.
Again there was also loads of tamales and shrines to see in the town, I only stopped off at 2 or 3 this time. After seeing so many I was truly all shrined out.

There was some sand art going on in the town which was cool, and all the proceeds from the event were going to the red cross for the Japan appeal. You could actually find in every shop and hostel some way to donate, and even the restaurants and clubs would take there Tips and put it directly to the cause.

Anyways back on topic, I moved from the bamboo forest to the "monkey mountain" a quick 160 meter elevation climb which was easy after fuji ;)

I really enjoy the Japanese way of conveying a message on the signs some of them have pictures which are a real laugh...

After reaching the top i was greeted not just with a fantastic view over the ancient city, but also with these monkeys just going about there business.


We could enter the building at the top and purchase apples and peanuts to feed the monkeys from inside the caged house... (so yeah the humans are the ones in the cage lol...)



Then it started to bucket down with rain and that concluded my days in Kyoto.