Monkey Park

CAUTION

Don’t stare at the monkeys in the eye
Don’t touch the monkeys
Don’t feed them outside

That was the warning that they gave us before entering the Monkey Park in Arashiyama (Western Kyoto City). Monkey Park is also referred to as Monkey Mountain and is perhaps my favorite place in Kyoto. It is a wildlife preserve of sorts. Or maybe it would be better described as a small mountain on the outskirts of Kyoto City were over a 150 Japanese Monkeys live freely and humans are allowed to go see them.

What ever it is it is definitely not a zoo. The monkeys are free to roam around and do what they want. There are no cages, and I doubt that the fences they have up would stop them from leaving if they wanted to. But why would they want to?! It seems like a scene from the Twighlight Zone; at this park the humans are inside a cage and the monkeys get to look at us from the outside! Well, that’s not entirely true either. Humans are free to wander amongst the primates as well but if you want to feed them you have to go inside a caged area where you can buy fruits and vegetables to give them through the fence. This is probably a good idea since those little hairy people get kinda vicious once they see food. And where I realized why you don’t stare them in the eye. I tried that from within the safety of the cage. The rather large male’s eyebrows slowly raised, his eyes got big and he started screaming and rattling the fence. I guess its that whole sign of confrontation in the wild idea.



Upon entering the park you have to climb about 20 min before you start seeing the monkeys but then all of a sudden you realize they are everywhere and could ambush you if they felt like it. But mostly they don’t care too much about people, that is unless you get to close or break one of the 3 rules laid out before.

There are old monkeys, baby monkeys, big monkeys, little monkeys, ugly monkeys and cute monkeys and they are everywhere. One monkey looked just like my friends Sef. Another one was just licking everything in sight. One baby was racing around with his hand over his eyes tripping on everything. One bared his teeth at me and menacingly followed me for a couple minutes after I got too close taking a picture. All sorts of monkeys for all sorts of people, and all of them are funny.

I love Monkey Park and I highly recommend it to anyone who is in Kyoto! Here is the website link: http://www.kmpi.co.jp/

The Big Buddha & Deer

Last week my friend Kris was visiting me from California so while he was out here I wanted to show him some of the cultural sights. After experiencing the packed and hectic streets of Tokyo he was ready to see some more peaceful and slow-paced places in Kansai.

One of the places that I really wanted to show him was the Big Buddha (Daibutsu) at Todaiji in Nara City. Of course I have been there before but I wanted it to be a sort of surprise so I just told him that we were going to see a big statue of the Buddha. The surprise was going to be the size of the Buddha, and the hoards of deer roaming freely around Nara.

No matter how you try to describe the Daibutsu you can never really prepare anyone for the actual size of the statue. Its really huge and housed in an even larger temple. No matter how many times I have been there it is always a sight to see the humongous statue sitting so peacefully in that building which is roughly 1200 years old.

The day we went was also really sunny and warm and even though the cherry blossoms were long gone everywhere else there was still a few around Todaiji that were almost in full bloom. The other great thing is the hundreds of deer that hang out around the parks waiting for people to feed them deer crackers. If you hold the cracker out for them they will bow their heads until you give it to them. But they aren’t as well behaved as you might think. They chase little kids, sometimes bite, and will come up behind you and tug on your coat until you feed them. All in all they are really cute and its cool to see so many just hanging around.

Cherry Blossom Viewing (Ohanami) Part II

While this past Saturday I had the chance to see some beautiful cherry blossoms in Kyoto it wasn’t a real ohanami party. But on Sunday I meet up with a bunch of friends at the Osaka Castle Park for a full fledged ohanami party. Sunday was also overcast and it threatened to rain a few times, but it was really warm and the sakura were really going in the park which surrounds the Osaka Castle.

We had BBQs going, and a really talented musician friend brought his guitar so there was lots of fun to be had. We stayed until dusk when it finally started raining but the flowers were so beautiful and we were having so much fun that nobody seemed to mind the rain that much.

Cherry Blossom Viewing (Ohanami) Part I

The highly anticipated cherry blossom viewing season is finally upon us! In just the last week the weather has made a dramatic shift from cold and bitter winter to warm and sunny spring. Ushering in spring is my favorite part of living in Japan; cherry blossom viewing which is called ohanami in Japanese. Almost everywhere you look you can see beautiful white and pink sakura (cherry blossoms). Parks, streets, rivers, and temples are usually lined with sakura trees so for the short lived two weeks or so that they are blossoming everything looks even more gorgeous. But as much as I love the beauty of it all the real reason why I love this time of year is for the ohanami parties.

Most often held in parks, a ohanami party involves food, friends, drinks, nice weather, beautiful scenery and lots of fun. Everyone brings out a big blue tarp and lays it out on the grass underneath the cherry blossom trees with BBQ, snacks and drinks. Its totally acceptable to drink beer or anything else in the park and people often bring music and games as well. For the next couple of weeks I will be trying to enjoy the sakura and ohanami parties as much as possible and I will surely end up with hundreds of photos of the flowers and fun which I will post here for all to see!

My first opportunity came this past Saturday when I went with a friend to Maruyama Park in Kyoto City. It was a really warm day even though it was cloudy. The sakura were not in full bloom yet but there were still plenty of blossoms to see. Also just walking around Kawaramachi and Gion in Kyoto there were plenty of beautiful sites and photos to be taken everywhere you look.

Japanese Baseball

This past Sunday I went to go see a professional baseball game at the Osaka Dome. The regional favorite team, the Hanshin Tigers (Osaka) were playing the Yakult Swallows (Tokyo). I personally love baseball so I can be totally happy watching any game, but in America I have many friends who think that baseball is so boring. American baseball games are boring compared to watching a professional game here in Japan.

Here the fans are almost constantly cheering and chanting support for their favorite team. The first time I went to a game my hands were so sore from clapping and cheering the whole time that I quickly realized why fans here all bring an assortment of plastic bats and other noise makers for cheering. The other interesting thing is that some teams have particular customs for celebrating; even though the Swallows fans were not at their home stadium there was a large section for them. Every time their team scored they all lifted up these miniature blue plastic umbrellas. When I saw that I thought it was strange but immediately remembered having gone to a Swallows home game in Tokyo about 5 years ago and thinking it looked so cool to see the whole stadium raising up little blue umbrellas after their team scored.

Some things are definitely the same at games here and back home; the beer and food is still almost 4 times the normal price, and they do check your bags to make sure you don’t bring in outside drinks. All in all the Japanese games are much more lively than games back home and it seems like they attract lots of people who might not be typical baseball fans just because the atmosphere is so fun.

Irrational Fear?

A large majority of Japanese people that I know have a dislike of crows. This can range from a slight distaste to hatred all the way to a seemingly irrational deep down fear of the beady eyed dark creatures. This is understandable as well as unfortunate as there are crows everywhere in Japan. They congregate in parks, lurk in alleyways and feed out of trash cans. I personally never had anything against them and while there is something distinctly ominous about crows I never feared or hated them. But all that changed just the other day.

On Sunday I was in Kyoto City sitting by the Kamo River in Sanjyo just enjoying the scenery and watching the people. I was waiting for a friend and had some time to kill before we went out to eat so I got a rice-ball snack (onigiri) from the convenience store. On occasion I eat onigiri but I am not a huge fan of them, but this onigiri was by far the best one I have ever had. It was a fried rice onigiri with shrimp, egg and pork on the inside. I had taken only two bites and was commenting to myself how unusually good this particular onigiri was when all of a sudden there was a loud noise and the onigiri disappeared from my hand! I was essentially looking in the same direction as my lovely rice ball but I had seen nothing. The noise was like a whoosh-smack and was accompanied by a slight pain in my now onigiri-less hand.

The shock, fear and pain momentarily confused me but I soon realized what happened when I saw the ruthless gang of crows having a bird feeding frenzy with my onigiri only 10 feet in front of me. If you haven’t deciphered the story by now, one of those little ruffians swooped out of the air and snatched my onigiri right out of my upraised hand, nearly taking my finger with it. After the shock subsided I was full of rage at the conniving feathered thieves for having committed beaked-robbery of the best onigiri I had ever had (and had only taken two bites of). But as I was surrounded by passers-by who probably didn’t even notice the brutal rice-ball snatching I figured I would be the one that looked like a lunatic if I tried to exact my revenge upon them there. So I sat with my pain and anger which eventually lead me from thoughts of murderous revenge to a slight respect for the cunning, precision heist that they had pulled off. I mean that crow swooped out of the sky right in front of my face and skillfully ripped the rice-ball out of my hand without me even seeing anything. And while there was some pain in the finger no blood was drawn and no evidence to show of the attack. While I still can't forgive them their trespass I have to admit a certain amount of awe at their artful larceny.

So now I join the Japanese in their dislike of the dark angels of theft. For now I will never be able to enjoy my onigiri in peace whilst those hooligans are about.

Lunch Time Dodgeball: Survival of the Fitest

All this week I have been going to Seika-dai Elementary School to visit and teach the 2nd graders. There are 5 second grade classes at this school and I visited each one twice this week. The first time around I talked about myself and my country, told silly jokes, made the kids laugh, and then played “Heads Up 7 Up.” The kids love that game and they are so funny when they play it. Then the second time I visited I was asked to talk about animals as that is what they are studying right now. So I decided to talk about some animals that are unique to America and some that I just think are funny. I talked about; bald eagles, raccoons, skunks (they don’t have them in Japan), wolves, moose, buffalos, and grizzly bears. Of course 2nd graders love animals so they enjoyed my lessons, especially when I talked about wolf packs eating humans and attacking bears.

As much fun as the classes were and also eating lunch with the kids by far the funniest part of the week was playing dodgeball with the kids during lunch break. Dodgeball is so popular with kids in Japan, so during breaks all the kids run outside and play dodgeball with their individual classmates. Since Seika-dai Elementary is 1st~6th grade and there are roughly 4 classes per grade there are about 24 classes which means 24 games of dodgeball going on simultaneously. The schoolyard is about the size of a football fields but with 24 dodgeball games going on it turns into a battlefield! All the dodgeball courts are right next to each other so stray balls are flying everywhere and random kids are getting hit left and right.

Plus the kids are fervent about dodgeball. Whenever someone is hit and sent out a cry of joy arises. Kids are diving onto the dirt ground to be the first one to recover the loose ball and then jump up to get a running start to throw the ball. Then to top it all off this week the games were divided boys against girls. So the boys take no mercy and the girls are bent on revenge and evening the score. The first day that I played with the 2nd graders no less than 3 or 4 kids in 15 minutes got tagged in the head and ended up crying, one of those was a boy that got hit by his female teacher. Then today despite my effort to not throw as hard as I can I accidentally hit a girl in the head because she tried to duck my throw. She started balling tears and snot and fell to the ground. I felt horrible and picked her up and apologized profusely. All the other girls said not to worry as she apparently cries over everything but I still felt horrible. But then again its all part of the game.

Lunch time dodgeball at Japanese elementary schools is chaos. Its like a battlefield with rubber balls instead of bullets. The scene reminds me of a something from “Lord of the Flies.” But it is also so much fun and the kids know better than anyone else that its kill or be killed in the dodgeball arena! Actually I used to play dodgeball everyday when I was in elementary school too and I can remember the savagery, bloody noses, fear and thrill of the sport. I guess the saying is true no matter where you are, “kids will be kids” and kids love dodgeball!