Day 138- September 28

By Al

We met  a good friend, Keiko Doi, who lives in Minneapolis but who happened to be in Kyoto visiting a friend. She went to Kinkakuji with us, also known as the Golden Temple.  The temple itself is  more spectacular than Ginkakuji. It was also extremely crowded with school children. They just kept arriving in bus loads.  We were again asked by school children if they could ask us questions. They had the same questions and it was obviously an exercise to practice their English. It was fun.    

Kinkaku-ji

Closer

 

School children with yellow hats.  Each class was wearing the same color hat.  It made it easy to keep the class together.



 

A red hat class.

We next went to Iwatayama Monkey Park. This is a large hill, almost a mountain, just west of Kyoto which has wild monkeys on it. You pay to go in and then walk up a long path to the top. I was reminded that Japan, like most of the world, doesn't have a lot of personal injury lawyers. There were no guard rails on the path and it wasn't paved. There were  not warning signs all over. Except, you had frequent warnings about not starting the monkeys in the eye, not feeding them, and not approaching them. That might have been more for the monkeys than the people.

It was really interesting. The monkeys seemed not afraid of the people and if you stood still they would walk right by you. But, if you approached to close, they would move away or let their hair bristle as a warning.

 

Monkey on a slide.

 

Amy on a slide.

 

 

 

Kyoyo from Iwatayama Monkey Park.

 

 

Monkey

At the base of Iwatayama Monkey Park.

 

River at the base of Iwatayama Monkey Park.

 

There is a nice little town at the base of the park by this river.  While we were waiting for a friend to pick us up(see later) we listened to three young sisters perform music.  They were very good.

 

 

 

 

The younger of the three sisters.

 

 

The three sisters.

 



Statue near a Bamboo Forest West of Kyoto.

We also met Jay Klaphake and his wife, Miyuki. We first met Jay over 20 years ago when we were both working on a campaign for Bob Long. Since then we have run into them a few times and knew they were in Japan. However, I didn't know where for sure. A couple of weeks before we left for Japan, I got an email from Jay announcing that he was a sponsor of a Ted event at Kyoto University. The event was a few days before we got to Kyoto, so we wouldn't be able to attend. But, since he was in Kyoto, I emailed him that we would be there.

Our families got together for dinner. It was a lot of fun to see them again and learn more about Kyoto. They have a daughter and son, and it was fun to meet them also.