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MONKEYS!!!
October 26th, 2013, 11:59pm.
HI GUYS! So apparently my "Hiroshima" blog won blog of the day today! Pretty cool huh? And that's for the entire site! I don't know if any of your continuous support has been the reason behind this, but either way, thank you! Thank you for following my uncle and I through our journey through Japan!
Today, we woke up early than we did yesterday. I have no idea how that happened, but somehow it did! I wasn't even hung over! (I don't usually get hang overs, though.) Real wasn't feeling 100% still, but he'd get over it. We started our day off by getting breakfast at McDonalds... *Sigh.* What a mistake that was. Turns out, that McDonalds here doesn't have a simple BACON AND EGG MCMUFFIN. Instead, they have McMuffins with Bacon, and two patties. They also have ham and egg McMuffins. But for some strange reason, they can't swap the ham for the bacon. I ordered it to be swapped, and what I received was an egg and egg McMuffin. With cheese. My favourite. NOT! The egg is the WORST part of the whole sandwich!!! I quickly went back and asked nicely if they could just put bacon on the sandwich. Aaaand no they couldn't it was 11:01 now, and breakfast had ended. And they couldn't just put bacon on it because their lunch menu has bacon in it's sandwiches too... But no. The only way they could do that was if I ordered the bacon and two patty sandwich, and took the patties off... So technically it costs me like twice as much. On top of that, I ordered it with no ketchup- I got ketchup. By the time I got back upstairs where we were sitting, Real had finished his breakfast and his juice.
Moral of the story- Don't eat breakfast at a Japanese McDonalds. Actually, I found out later today that in Japan, they call McDonalds either "Makku," "Makkudo," or "Makkudonalodu." Hahahaha I thought that was pretty funny! In Australia they call it "Mackers." And then there's Canada... Where we call it "Mickey Dee's," or "Mcd*** ." How pathetic? I think "Makkudonalodu" is my favourite. The Japanese staff at the hostel were laughing at me trying to pronounce it like they do. Oh well, practice makes perfect!
After our struggle of a breakfast, we made out way to the west of Kyoto. To a place called Arashiyama. There was a monkey park here. Where you can feed and walk around with real wild monkeys!!! Aaaah!! We had to climb a HUGE mountain to get to them, though. It was about a 30 minute walk, straight up. The stupid stairs were honestly the size of a ledge- each one!
As we started getting higher up, we heard rustling branches. Was it the wind in the leaves? No! It was a giant monkey! A Snow Mokey, to be exact. They live in packs of 30 - 50, but on this mountain, there are about 130! We made it to the top where there was a tiny building infested with monkeys! They were on the ground, the roof, the trees, the walls, the screens, everywhere! There were also little 5 month old baby monkeys! Oh my goodness, they were the sweetest little things.
I got talking to some of the staff members that supervise the park. They all know each and every one of the monkeys' names! They can tell because apparently their faces are different. The young man pointed out the "alpha male" to me. He looked a lot older than the other monkeys. "He's 29 years old," the staff member told me. Well no wonder he looks old then! He's older than me!!! Snow Monkeys only get to live to about 30 years old anyway. The oldest monkey in the pack is 34, a female! You go girl!!
I went into the building and bout a bag of sliced apples for a buck. Then I went over to the screen where there were monkeys hanging off of it in every single direction! They were all sticking their hands through the bars, politely holding there palms open as if to say, "More please!" I went over and handed the monkeys some apples. They had tiny little fingers and fingernails, just like us! They had beat red faces and butts, and their eyes were huge on their heads! I tried feeding the little baby ones some, but the big scary monkeys scared them away! I got mad at one and told him he didn't deserve any food if he was going to be a bully.
One of the staff members tarted chanting something. The monkeys all perked up and looked at him. Suddenly, they all swarmed towards him, where he held a bucket with some sort of grain in it. From a speaker hanging from the tiny building, a song started blasting! I don't remember what the song is called... But it's like, "Can can, can you do the can can..." Blah blah blah... You know which one I'm talking about right? Well, at the ending chords of the song, the keeper poured the rest of the grain on top of this high tree trunk, where the alpha male soon appeared. He ate like a king, high on his pedestal! They were so cute! I'm so happy we hiked up all that way to see them!
For the rest of the day, we walked around the whole area looking at gardens and temples. It was nice, but they did have entry fees. Some were more expensive than others, but for the distance we walked and the amount we paid- NOT WORTH IT! Well, it probably was for Real. But for me... Eh, I could have done without.
Oh one thing we did in between was walk through the Bamboo Forest! It was really short though. Like, only about 500m all the way through. It was very peaceful, though. Even though the area was full of people, I was able to take a moment and look up, watch the tall, skinny trunks bend and sway in the wind. The sound of the leaves rustling together reminded me of home, and I got a little nostalgic. It was okay, though! I remembered that I have a week left to go, but so much more to see!
After the gardens, we returned to the hostel. We got dressed up, and went to the 4th floor for the Halloween party! I was a cute skeleton, and real was a witch! It was a lot of fun! We walked to the near by shrine to take a group photo, and then we walked back for a little more party. Most of the people went to a bar, but most of us had had enough of drinking.
We celebrated a little more, since it was Barry's birthday today, and mine on Monday.
Then I waited in line for a shower... It sucked. I got my stuff together for our day trip to Nara tomorrow, and now I'm in bed typing to you! I best be off to sleep! Sweet dreams everyone!
Love always,
Lindsay Lehr
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