Japan Day six - Monkey Mayhem

On day six in Japan it was time to visit the "Japanese snow monkey's" except these little guys weren't actually living in the snow, they were living in a park in Kyoto. The "colony" of monkey's is a little bit like a reserve, the monkey's are really used to people but at the same time they are still wild animals not caged animals. They are really amazing to watch and you even have the opportunity to feed the monkeys. The monkey's seem to be fairly uninterested in people (except for when you're feeding them of course!) and just go about their lives. This place was really amazing and a lot of fun, I think it was my favourite thing in Japan.












After spending some time with the monkey's we decided to go for a walk along the river near the park as it was really peaceful after all the madness of Tokyo. Along the river we saw lots of sign's pointing towards a temple so we thought we'd check it out, the walk was much longer than I originally thought but that was ok as it was nice to be out in the fresh air! When we finally arrived we found a quiet and pretty shrine on top of a hill with an amazing view of the city - it was so nice to be somewhere like this that wasn't completely over run with tourists.




In the evening we decided to have a look around Gion, a very important historic area of Kyoto which sometimes feels like stepping back in time there are a lot of cobbled streets and winding lanes. Apparently if you're lucky you might see a geisha in Gion but we didn't see any - I think the geisha's would actually be a little scared of stepping outside as there are so many tourists waiting with camera's to take photos.




We decided to head home but on the way home we came across the most amazing and exciting thing ever. A New Zealand themed cafe, complete with fish and chips. We had already had dinner but I couldn't let this opportunity to have hokey pokey ice cream pass me by. We were so excited about this cafe!

Japan Day Four - Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Asakusa Temple, River Cruise & Tokyo Tower

On day four of our trip to Japan we had a mammoth day of siteseeing in Tokyo - first of all we visited the Meiji Shrine. This is a big shrine that was very busy on the day we went, which is saying something given we visited mid-week. The park that the shrine was in was very peaceful which made a nice change given the hurried pace we had been experiencing in Tokyo.




We followed up our trip to the shrine with a visit to Harajuku, which has some of the most amazing shopping I have ever seen. I think I was fairly restrained with my purchases - it would be easy to spend a lot of money here!












Next we visited the Asakusa Temple, which is a big Buddist temple. During our visit part of it was under repair, but it didn't impact on the visit too much, the whole area surrounding the shrine is amazing and vibrant and a really great part of Tokyo to visit.




Next we decided it was time to do a river cruise, because river cruises are always good.



Finally, we finished off the day by heading to the top of Tokyo Tower, it looks just like the Effiel Tower - only it's much bigger. There is an amazing view from the top of the tower, you get a feel for just how big Tokyo really is!