Again we woke up before the sun, but this time it was more or less planned. We wanted to get to the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest before the tour busses got there and it was an hour bicycle ride to there from our hotel.
I had heard of a lot of tourists who said to budget a half a day for this experience and, honestly, we were underwhelmed by it. It was pretty, sure, but it wasn't nearly big enough to spend even one hour there, much less half a day.
These same tourists insisted that the Monkey Park was worth missing, but clearly these tourists were not our people because after one of the most grueling climbs up stairs and steep hills we got to feed peanuts and apples to itty bitty baby monkeys and we're still giddy about it!
Okay, I really can't go any further into this post wirhout explaining the physical toll that we're dealing with right now...we have had 4 days of walking for miles, dragging suitcases up countless stair cases and now we've added the extra absolute torture of riding a bicycle for hours at a time. Debbie and I are NOT exactly bicycle people. I may or may not have forgotten the sheer amount of pain in the butt (absolutely literally) that riding a bicycle for that amount of time does. And Kyoto is not exactly a flat city. Add to the fact that I picked the wrong pair of shoes to wear and you might get an idea of the physical torment that I'm feeling right now! Now let's add a further layer of misery because poor Debbie has managed to catch a nasty cold yesterday so there's that...Side note: I went to a pharmacy here in Kyoto yesterday looking for some cold medicine for her. The pharmacist gave me some stuff that Google Translate says could possibly turn her house yellow but not to be concerned because it's just the B vitamins. Yes, you read that correctly.
After leaving the Monkey Park we found the Aeon Mall, where I finally found suitable shoes but the damage was done. However, Debbie stumbled upon a miracle in the form of this weird robot capsule thing, that for only 300 yen (like $2) it gives you a full body massage for 10 minutes! It nearly ranked up there with feeding wild baby monkeys.
Now by the time we got back towards our side of town, we knew that we had to hit the shopping district before it got dark because the shops close then and we still had items on our shopping list that we specifically had to get from Kyoto. Neither of us had the will to do it but we pulled ourselves together and marched on over. The Nishiki Market is no joke; we we're there for at least 3 hours and barely scratched the surface of that place.
My feet were still torn up but, once again, Debbie came through with an unconventional yet effective remedy; a foot soaking bath where tiny fish nibble at the dead skin on your feet. Yup, we've all heard of it but I never thought it would ever be something I would actually try...and yet.
Tomorrow we're hoping to get up early again and limp over to the Fushimi Inari (10,000 Gates) and then jump on the shinkansen to Hiroshima.
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