Inuyama Monkey Park

Yesterday I went to Inuyama again, but this time to see the monkey park. It was pretty far away from the train station, so we had to walk for a long time to get there. The park was a lot better than I thought it would be though. I hadn't expected to see so many different kinds of monkeys there. I forgot to bring extra batteries for my camera, so of course it died like half an hour after we got there. We didn't know this, but the monkey park had not only lots of monkeys to look at, but also an amusement park. The amusement park had lots of cool stuff for kids (and us!) like a ferris wheel, haunted house, go-carts, spinning tea-cups and these things:

They had these big, mechanized animals that you could ride around. I think you just put a couple hundred yen in the panda or whatever, and then the thing takes off, moving its legs and sort of gliding around. It looked pretty fun.
Here are a couple funny signs I saw:


Of course the monkey park was lacking in the way a lot of the monkeys were cared for. Often times they were in cages alone, and the baboon's area was just a big cement dome with no trees or grass, and some of the monkeys looked pretty sick. Of course I don't really know anything about how to create an ideal environment for all these different kinds of monkeys, but as far as I could see, maybe 70% of the monkeys looked like they had everything they needed.

There were lots of Japaese Snow monkeys. Watching these 30 maybe monkeys run around, clap their hands for food, fight with each other and scream at the tourists was pretty disturbing and scary. Just like in a movie or something, there was one of these guys who was really ugly, it looked like he had mange and a number of other problems, but he was also the meanest one. If ever a tourist threw a piece of food down near him, and someone else tried to get it, he got really angry and would run after them until he caught them and then start biting them all over. See what I mean about scary? Here is a picture of a couple nice ones:

Here's a picture of another monkey. I don't remember what kind it is, but jeez is it cute!

I guess that's all of my pictures since like I said, my camera died pretty early on in the day. After about five hours at the monkey park, we went back to Nagoya, searched for a Mexican restaurant in Shin-Sakae, turned out it was closed, had ramen, and then I went home. I was completely dog tired.

Inuyama Castle

Yesterday I went to Inuyama Castle. It's only a half hour north of Nagoya so it was really easy to get to and see in just a day. It's the oldest castle in Japan having been built in 1537. The castle wasn't all that big. It was maybe four or five stories tall I think. We had to climb these super steep wooden stairs to go from floor to floor. Here's a picture of it from the outside.

On the second floor they had some glass cases with like old, Japanese armor inside. Here's a picture of one of them.

Then we went up to the fourth floor balcony that you can see in the first picture. The city of Inuyama looks pretty much like Handa except they have a nice river. Here are a couple pictures of Inuyama from the top balcony of the castle.


While you might think from the pictures that the weather was nice that day, it was actually insanely cold. After the castle, the five of us got the idea to go to the next prefecture, Gifu which is north of my prefecture, Aichi. There were no open restaurants in Inuyama so we were sure that there would be some there. So we got on the train to Gifu, then walked around forever trying to find some food. Eventually we ate somewhere and then got back on the train to have some drinks in Nagoya. It was a great day.

The rest of my vacation

We left for Kyoto on the 2nd, and then went to Nara on the 3rd. Nara is a really old city like Kyoto with lots of nature and shrines and temples everywhere. The funny thing about Nara is that deer there are sacred and protected and allowed to roam around the whole city as they please. I guess the story is that first emperor of Japan, Jimmu, descended from heaven, and rode a deer. So in turn, the deer of Nara are supposed to be the descendents of Jimmu's deer and thus are to be protected. Here's a picture of one deer hanging out on the sidewalk, waiting for someone to give him some food.

In Nara, we went to Todaiji temple. This place was really neat and the temple building itself is the largest wooden building in the world. Inside is the largest Buddha statue in Japan too.


There were these big pillars inside the temple, and one of them had a hole in the bottom of it. The story is that if you crawl through the hole at the bottom of this pillar, you will reach enlightenment. So there was a long, long line of kids whose parents were making them crawl through the hole. Here's a picture.

Then we walked all around the park in Nara. Here's a picture of some moss covered lanterns on the way to another temple.

The next day I had to come back to Nagoya to work on the 5th. It was an awesome trip though. We definitely saw and did all we could in those eight days. I guess I won't have another real holiday until Golden Week in May. Ugh, what a bummer.
Oh well, it was a wonderful time. Having my friends here was great and I miss them already. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year's! See you later.

Winter Holiday

I haven't written in so long, I guess I have to really make this one count.
So I went to some different places in Japan during my vacation from work. I went to Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara with my friends Kerri and Mia who came to visit from America.
Kerri and I met Mia in Tokyo on the 28th and went to Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills that day.
This is a picture of Tokyo from the 53rd floor of Mori Tower.

This city is freaking humongous. From the observation area all we could really see were buildings all the way to the horizon in every direction.
The next day we went to Tsukiji Fish Market, and the Shibuya neighborhood. The intersection in this photo is in front of Shibuya station, and is supposedly the busiest intersection in the world.

The next day we went to Yokohama which is another huge city next to Tokyo. The China-town there was really really cool. We had lots of good food and saw some neat temples. This was one of my favorite things we did on the trip.

The next night was New Year's Eve. We went to Zojoji Temple near Harajuku for the countdown. There were tons and tons of people there, all crammed into the walkway in front of the temple. Here's a picture of this.

I guess it's also traditional at a Buddhist Temple to bang on a huge bell 108 times before midnight on New Year's Eve. I heard that Buddhists believe there to be 108 earthly desires in humans, so they bang on the bell this many times before midnight to get rid of your earthly desires before the new year. Here's a really awful photo of the bell.

Most people were given balloons at the temple. They were supposed to write their wish for the new year down on paper, and then tie the paper to their balloon. At midnight everyone let go of their balloons.

Then, the second after midnight, everyone ran inside the temple and started throwing their money at these monks who were in the middle of the room praying. My pictures from this part of the night at the temple are so crappy they're not even worth posting.
On the walk from Zojoji temple, back to the station, we saw that Tokyo Tower (which is 3 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower) had been lit up for 2007.

Here's a picture of me and Kerri waiting for the subway to go to Roppongi after we left Zojoji. Believe it or not, we didn't even have a drop to drink that night.

I can't write anymore, I'll finish writing about my trip in the next post.