12 April 2009

I woke up at 8am this morning, and it sure was hard to get out of bed. I think everyone is pretty tired out, but it is always because we are too excited to see new things than lose out by sleeping in. Since we have preliminary project designs due tomorrow for studio, Trudy and I decided to visit the project site before meeting the class at 11am at Nijo Castle. We were a bit turned around directionally when we came out of the subway, so we ended up getting lost. We asked for directions at a Family Mart convenience store, and we restarted our journey. Luckily, we found the site and were able to photograph it quickly before taking the subway to Nijo Castle. We ended up getting there about 15 minutes late, but we caught up with the group in no time. Some people decided to sleep in, so it was a medium sized group of us. Visiting the inner grounds of Nijo Castle, the only portion which I hadn’t seen yet, was pretty anticlimactic. The inner structures were much less feudal in design, and they were completely different than the outer structures. It was pretty disappointing and unexciting, though I still enjoyed the space thoroughly. At least now I am familiar with Nijo Castle, and I won’t have to visit it in the future.
After Nijo Castle, a group of seven of us decided to part from the group and visit the bamboo forest and Monkey Park in Kyoto instead. We took the JR train line to get there, and it was very close. On the way, we picked up lunch at Mos Burger since it was convenient. I tried a shrimp cutlet burger for 350 yen. It was a bit fishier than I had expected, but it was nonetheless very good. Once we arrived at our destination, we had to walk a ways to get to the bamboo forest. It was very crowded, but the bamboo was very tall, straight, and beautiful. It was hot today, so the shaded forest was very relaxing. We had to ask for directions to the Monkey Park since it was a bit farther from the bamboo forest. It was at the top of a hill, and it cost 250 yen to get in. It was a very steep hike to get to the top, but it was definitely worth it once we got there. The monkeys were roaming free, and we just had to watch out for them since they could potentially get aggressive if provoked. All of us took lots and lots of photos, and the view over Kyoto was astounding. We spent a descent chunk of time there since the monkeys were so amusing and fun to watch. They weren’t the cutest creatures I have seen thus far on my trip, but it was definitely one of the most memorable.
On the way back to the train station from Monkey Park, we stopped to sit alongside the huge river at the base of the mountain. There were at least a hundred row boats in the water, since you could rent them for a fee. It turned out to be a very amusing form of entertainment as we were able to watch two drunk guys do crazy things in their boat and ultimately end up falling into the river and capsizing their boat. They were ok, so it was hilarious to watch. The boat attendants had to go out to rescue the oars and pull the boat back to shore, while the two guys swam to the dock. My friends took pictures of the ordeal, and I was able to catch the last part of it on video. It was a great comedy to top off our great visit to the north-eastern side of Kyoto.
Back at the hotel, I once again ate my leftover okonomiyaki. I will be able to finish it up by tomorrow night, but I am still amazed by how large it was originally. It lasted me for three dinners! I was pretty exhausted from a long day by the time I returned to the apartment, but I had lots to do. I started off with my Japanese language homework, then proceeded to work on my studio project with Trudy. Don is having all of our class projects be in partners, so by default, we work with our roommate. We finished it pretty quickly but still weren’t able to go to bed until 3am. One of these days I’ll let myself sleep in, but I’m just not quite sure when that day will be. There is still so much to see and do, and I don’t want to miss out on anything!