4pm Flight to Taipei
After that I went back to get G from the internet cafe. We left on our way to Gion to try to see some geisha. On our way we saw Meghan and Menka. They were going to the Temple with the 1000 Buddhas. We really didn't have much else to do so we went with. It was a pretty long walk South along the river. We arrived a little before 4:30pm so we had to hurry. It was almost empty inside- after the school groups left. There were indeed, hundreds of Buddhas. It was easy to assume that they were just stamped out at a factory. But these were all hand made. Each by itself was beautiful, 36 arms each! Each hand was different, either in a different position or holding a different object. We had to go quickly through the temple to see it all and make sure they didn't lock us in. We weren't allowed to take pictures, so I kept the pamphlet. It took a good bit of time to walk all the way back. But we walked through Gion, hoping to see some geisha. We walked slowly and probably stared at every woman wearing a kimono. I thought I saw one, but she didn't have any make-up on and didn't look at all that impressive.
When we got back it was almost time for Skiaki. The grills- or burners really- were set out. As we say down there was pork cooking with some noodles, mushrooms, and leafy something. We got bowls and eggs. We were told to put the egg (raw) in the bowl and mix it with soy sauce. Then we took the very hot meat and vegetables and dipped them in the egg mixture. We discussed the possibility of salmonella versus the effectiveness of hot food touching eggs. We ate it anyway. It was really a fun meal. Eric and Emily were eating with us. We started just using our own chopsticks to eat right out of the pot. We had one bottle of beer to share between the four of us and it resulted in a tiny glass per person. At the end of the meal, Norio and his staff poured saki for anyone who wanted it. It was pretty sweet and not strong at all.
After dinner I worked on writing my Population paper and Culture response to Ryoanji. I felt so productive I read a few pages of the Population textbook and fell asleep.
At breakfast, G's host mom called him. They made plans to meet at the subway station and go to the monkey park, then meet for dinner. Wait. We met Kristy's host mom and sister to go to the park. Anyway, after class we ran to exchange a little money (to ship our boxes home) and eat at McDonalds. As we were waiting for Kristy's mom I had to go to the bathroom. While I was back at Hagashiama YH I found her and Akina (her 3 year old daughter) and took them back to meet G. Kristy, Hannah and Katie were down in the subway station. We all got together and found the bus that would take us up to the monkey park. The other girls entertained Akira and were really good at figuring out the bus thing. Unfortunately, I think we were supposed to press a button at our stop, but we didn't so we accidentally went one stop too far. That was ok. We took a really nice walk. It seemed very un-touristy and more authenticly Kyoto-like. Lots of fishermen in boats, little old people walking around.
We followed the signs to the entrance. We paid, left the stroller and started climbing stairs. We'd heard from other people that it was quite a journey but that it was well worth it. Well, it was. The mountains were beautiful and we climbed up them. It wasn't as bad/difficult as Akagi, but I still broke a good sweat and regretted wearing a skirt and open-toed shoes. The drop-off along the stairs was pretty much just straight down to a ravine. We didn't see any monkeys until we got to the top of the mountain (about 30 minutes later). We saw 1 or 2 and took tons of pictures. They were just sitting on trees waiting for us.
We got to the top of the mountain and were amazed. The scenery was unbelievable. To our right and left were mist-covered mountains and below us stretched Kyoto-City. We could see to the other side of the city- it was all laid out in front of us. The clouds pretty much covered the sun so there was a kind of haze over everything- making it look even more romantic. Plus, there were little brown monkeys everywhere.
I took tons of pictures and bought postcards, so I won't go into a physical description of the monkeys. There was a house-looking thing at the top of the hill and a man told us to go rest inside. Inside had a counter that sold monkey food! Bags of peanuts and of apples for Y100 each. We fed the monkeys through the windows of the house. They (the windows) were covered with fence material so the monkeys could reach their hands in. There were maybe 50 monkeys or so in the immediate area. They came up to the windows and stuck in their hands. The best way to feed the was to put the food in the palm of my hand and have the monkey reach out and pick up the food from my hand. Their hands were like baby hands. Usually the monkeys were polite and just delicately took the food and ate it. Other monkeys fought each other to be at the windows. There were also tiny baby monkeys the size of mid-sized kittens. They crawled and jumped around and got food when the bigger monkeys let them. Their tiny teeth had a hard time biting through peanut shells- it was so cute. If you stood too close with food in your hand, sometimes a big monkey snapped it right out of your hand. That was scary. We stayed there for a long time and spent lots of money feeding the monkeys. We also took tons of pictures.
When we were all broke, we sat outside and looked at the landscape. The monkeys were all around us sitting on benches, laying on the ground, picking at each other. Many of the baby monkeys were breastfeeding. A park ranger guy helped us take a group picture. When we were all together he said, "Don't touch the monkeys!!" and threw monkey food at us. Then the monkeys came and sat with us in the picture. That was also fun.
We walked back down the mountain (stopping to watch the monkeys slide down a slide and play on a swing set). Caught a bus home and I and Akino and Hannah all fell asleep on the bus.
We met Hiromi (G's host mom) in front of the Book-Off. She looked very happy to see him and said that she and her husband cried over dinner when they looked at pictures of G. She was just about as small as Marino, but she looked much more traditional. She wasn't as cute. She was also very quiet. It took us a while to form plans and then translate them into Japlish. We stopped at HYH to try to take an imminent quiz early, but without good results. So we walked to what can only be considered a Japanese dive, or greasy spoon. Maybe a greasy chopstick, where we met Massa- Hiromi's 22-year-old husband (she's 28). Their English wasn't too good so there wasn't much conversation. We had to run back and soon as we finished eating to take the quiz. When it was over we left to meet them all again too sing karaoke...........
6pm Taiwan- bus to Jiantan YAC
So. We went to sing karaoke. We went to the basement of a pachinko parlor. We rented a private room for the 7 of us. It was pretty tiny, but the music was loud. We paid Y1500 each for all-we-could-drink and eat and sing. We first had a round of beer and some cheese that Kristy's mom brought. Hiromi wanted to start off with Hero by Mariah Carey. As it started playing, the words came up in English over a background of New York City. The World Trade Center was in most of the pictures (before the attacks) and there were also American flags. It was really hard to watch and sing those words. We just kinda looked down and mumbled- glancing at each other once in a while. We didn't want to tell them because we didn't want them to feel bad.
We sang songs that the Japanese knew (mostly ABBA and Mariah Carey) and songs that we knew (Beatles, Simon & Garfunkle). G bolted out Stairway to Heaven before I could stop him. We girls had 2 more rounds of drinks and G had 3. We ended around 10:15pm with a popular and rousing version of YMCA. It was so much fun. We left to try to make it to the Hostel before lights out. We were pretty drunk. When Hiromi was saying good-bye to G she burst out crying. We left quickly so she wouldn't be put through too much pain. Oh, and Kristy's mom gave us 4 girls bottles of Yakisoba sauce because earlier in the day we said we liked Yakisoba. Oh, and at some point G bought Japanese porn, but that doesn't have to do with anything.
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