Monkeying Around in Kyoto

September 28th--Today was our last day in Kyoto so we had a few must sees for the day. The morning started off cloudy, but was very pleasant. However, as the day went on it turned humid and rainy at times, but it didn't stop us from what we wanted to see. Our first stop of the day was to the Nijo Castle. It was a nice change from all the temples. The Nijo Castle (Nijojo) was the Tokugawa shogun's Kyoto home built in 1603. The main building, Ninomaru Palace, had nightingale floors. These wood floors made a sound like birds when walked on. This was to protect the shogun from enemies, even though the palace was surrounded by a moat and stone walls. Outside of the palace, we really enjoyed the beauty of the garden and loved the beginning colors of Fall. From the castle, we caught a bus to the Arashiyama area of Kyoto. It was here that we decided on a quick lunch before heading into the Bamboo Forest. While walking to the forest, we saw 2 Geisha girls being pulled on a rickshaw. It was so neat to see them in such a "traditional" environment. There is no other way to describe the Bamboo Forest than to say "picture a forest, except for all the trees, there were Bamboo trees all over the place". Mike's first comment upon seeing all the bamboo was "Wow, we would of had a heyday here for Pike Swamp". We walked through the forest and then down by the Katsura River where we enjoyed some ice cream. After our snack, we went to the Iwatayama Monkey Park. We really love our kids because at this time it was raining and to get to where the actual monkeys were, we had to walk to the top of Mount Arashiyama. This required us to climb up a very steep mountain path in the rain. It was a fun experience though once we got to the top and recovered from our climb. We entered into a room where the windows were covered with cages. We purchased a bag of peanuts and a bag of apples to feed the Japanese macaque monkeys. There's a reason we were protected by the cage because these animals are definitely wild. We were told not to touch them, feed them outside, or look them in the eye. After feeding them, we did step outside and get a beautiful view of Kyoto down below. From here, we made our descent down which was a whole lot easier. When we got to the bottom, we were pretty tired so we hoped on a bus back to our room to regroup. We had thought about going to eat downtown, but everyone was tired so it was back Kyo-Chabana for one last pancake. We will definitely miss that restaurant and it's great food.