we went to kyoto a while back...

...and stayed with Arch, which was nice. We swent to a place by the name of Arashiyama, about an hour and a half drive from Archs place, through downtown Kyoto, off page 26 of our map, back on and just to the left a little. It was fun.

The Friday night saw Nic and I driving down in seemingly record time, after having encountered roadworks on the expressway. They had closed one lane of the two lane highway, at 4:00 in the afternoon on a Friday to fix two (2) potholes on the entire stretch of road. So Nic and I took turns making up new cusses to describe the enormous traffic jam and passed the time quite nicely.

Following a slap up feed at a restaurant just down the way from Archs it was back to his place for lots and lots of beer and a marathon game of Risk on the `puter. I called it quits at about 2:30 and left my poor defenseless troops to the savages that are Nic and Arch, and they battled it out towards world domination until Nic wasted Arch at about 3:30-4:00. She kept her victory dance limited to a couple of laps around the tiny apartment and let me slumber. Archs tears however kept me awake for hours.

So. Next day, fortified by German potatoes and egg-y wegg-ys we headed for this Arashiyama joint. First off we decided to go see monkeys. Up a hill. A very steep hill. It`s getting pretty summer-y here in Japan-towne and we are not getting any younger. `Twas a hot, steamy cliff climb to go see these monkeys.

The only advice we had was "Don`t look at the monkeys". How do you step around a monkey and make sure you are not standing on its` rabies infected tail without looking at it? You can`t. There were some hissing, stary old monkeys that day. But the little ones? Cute as buttons. Ooooja Boooja Boooo. OOooooja Boooja Boooja Boo. Oooja Boo. They were pretty damn cute. There must have been 50 odd monkeys just sort of "being" on this hillside. You stroll in and out of them, always steeling yourself for flight from the rabies infected pointy, pointy teeth and there undoubtedly rabies infected grabby, grabby fingers. If you want to feed them then it`s you that goes into a cage and feeds them as they hang at all sorts of odd angles from the side of the cage with their arms thrust out. Most of them are love-er-ly and calmly take your proffered apple slices (there was choice between apples and peanuts, and while peanuts it could be argued would have helped to keep them "regular", I went for apples - it was a hot day and what would you prefer? Drrrrrrryyyy old dryyyyyyy peanuts that would drrrryyyyy you out with the drrrryyyy drrrryyyyness or sweet, thirst quenching apple? There. I thouught so.)and then there are the angry, old "I`m not as cute as I once was and I ain`t getting no suger" grabby, grabby fellas, who frankly scared the crap out of me and had me looking over my shoulder once we left the cage to make sure they weren`t going to mug me for my sweeeet, thirst quenching aaaaapppples.

So we played with the monkeys for a bit, then strolled down the mountainside and decided to stick to the river, with its cooling, cooling water and stroll along a pathway up into a valley, just to see what happened. We wandered along for maybe half an hour, enjoying some good old fashioned nattering and came across a handdrawn map on a sign. It said that there was a temple some ways along the path, and us being the adventurous type decided to go. The map showed that there would be a hill, some twists and turns, a pathside cafe, a grandmother (the sign said "grandmother") and then the temple.

Along we strolled. We climbed the hill, rounded some twists and turns, passed a pathside cafe and lo!!!! around a corner, seated, more reclined actually, beside the path was a woman who looked to be about a thousand years old. It was grandmother. She was cute. She also sold ice cool drinks to parched dry strollers at frankly outrageous prices. We fell for it. She lknew we would. She didn`t even have to try.

Temple comes soon. Out.