Japan's Arashiyama, Pt. 2

We just came back from Iceland and Amsterdam so I will doing a few posts about it in the coming weeks. Well, whenever I finish unpacking and uploading my photos. But, as promised, part deux of our day in Arashiyama. You can find part one of our day here.

After we visited the monkeys at the park, we wandered into town to see the rest of the temples and the famous bamboo forest. But first, we had to stop for some sticky buns.

We walked into the grounds of Tenryuji Temple, but most of the temple was under construction. This is the only photo I was able to take, sadly. It looks so majestic from the outside, so make sure to stop by. It's one of Kyoto's five great zen temples and the largest one in Arashiyama.

After we left the temple a bit disappointed, we tried to figure out how to get to the bamboo forest. The city is easily walkable (and if you want, easy to ride your bike rental around) but for some unknown reason, we had such a hard time finding the bamboo forest. It's almost like we were walking around it forever, but never quite finding it. There weren't any signs pointing toward it and the map we had kept stirring us the wrong way. But after 45 minutes of aimlessly walking around, we finally found it! And of course, as usual, it was right under our noses.

Let's just say it was worth it, as the forest is unlike anything we've seen before. What really stuck with me though was the soft noise of the bamboo moving back and forth, rubbing against its next door neighbor, ever so gently. It was such a peaceful sound. I almost forgot that I was surrounded by rowdy tourists and random kids running around.

After walking along the bamboo forest path for a while, we headed back to the bus stop to grab a bus to the Golden Pavilion. The buses in this area come often and are easy to ride. The drivers were super helpful when it came to transfers and figuring out what bus to get on. As soon as we jumped on the bus though, it started raining. We got soaked as we entered the temple grounds, but luckily we had our ponchos with us. The Golden Pavilion or Kinkaku-ji Temple is a replica of the original temple that, you guessed it, burned down in 1950. After surviving a war where all of the buildings but the Pavilion were burned down, a monk with alleged schizophrenia burned it down and was later caught and imprisoned. The gold leaf exterior has a special purpose as it repels negative thoughts and feelings toward death. You can't go inside, but you can walk around the gorgeous gardens after catching a glimpse of the gold temple.

And that was it for our day trip to Arashiyama. It was one of my favorite stops of our trip. I may or may not have to do with the monkeys :).

In case you missed it, here's part 1 of our day in Arashiyama. These pictures were taken on October 2013.

Japan's Arashiyama, Pt. 1

Long time, no see! Summer has been hectic around these parts, between work, freelance and preparing for our next adventure. But I'm back for one (or maybe two!) more posts before we head to Europe. So here we are, back to Japan! Using Kyoto as a home base, we traveled to nearby cities for day trips. Arashiyama is on the western suburbs of Kyoto, and once on the JR Sagano Line, it takes about 20 minutes to get there. The small city is famous for its bamboo forest, several large temples and MACAQUE MONKEYS (!!). The town has so much charm and we enjoyed walking from the train station to the main part of town, about 10 minutes. The area is perfect for riding bikes, sadly most shops were closed while we were there.

Our first stop, of course, was the Iwatayama Monkey Park. This post is mostly about those furry little dudes so you've been warned! They were number one on my list of things to see.

After being traumatized by the Inari Shrine climb (we had no idea we were basically hiking up a mountain!), we saw the map of the Monkey Park and freaked out. But it ended up being an easy climb.  It was an overcast, but warm day. Over 170 monkeys live in this park. We had a good chuckle when we realized that they put the humans in a cage in order to feed the monkeys. As it should be, probably. There's a small fee for the park that you pay at the entrance.

As we approached the summit, these little dudes were watching us from nearby branches. They roam wild, but are accustomed to humans and interacting with them. They are friendly, but many of the signs warned against looking at them directly in the eye.

We went inside the summit to feed the monkeys. It only costs about 100 yen for a bag of food. We bought three and the monkeys were so glad. They were so funny and curious. Tiny monkey spam!

The view from the mountain is breathtaking! You can see the whole town from above. I could not stop laughing at how silly these monkeys were. They really did not care that we were there.

On our way down the mountain, we found this abandoned playground. Of course we had to get on this awesome slide!

I'm glad we made the monkey park our first stop that day. We were able to explore and watch them do silly things without rushing. Part 2 of our Arashiyama day coming up!

These pictures were taken on October 2013.

Nishiki Market + Cooking class in Kyoto

One of our favorite things to do when we are home is to cook. Alex is really into grilling, smoking meats and cooking big meals for our friends. For me, I love baking -- as you can see from my blog, I'm kinda obsessed with baking pies. So when we travel, we try to eat everything and learn how things are made so we can try to replicate them at home. In Atlanta, we have this amazing street called Buford Highway, where we can find all kinds of ingredients from all over the world. We are really lucky to have it. Naturally, when we went to Kyoto we signed up for a cooking class. After much researching, we settled on Taro's cooking class. He offered to teach us how to cook miso soup from scratch, other side items and best of all, KOBE BEEF. Real Kobe beef is hard to find despite several restaurants saying they offer it. Kobe beef comes from a specific strain of wagyu cattle, raised in the Hyogo Prefecture.  It's famous for its beautiful marbling (the high quality fat melts at room temperature!) and flavor. The beef goes through several inspections and must meet specific requirements -- where they are raised, who are the parents and slaughtered only at specific slaughterhouses. Due to the strict nature of the process, a lot of producers, especially in the U.S., cross a wagyu cow with an angus cow and call it "Kobe style beef." But it's not the same! Not at all. Let's just say that all of those requirements are worth it because that beef was AMAZING.

We signed up for the optional Nishiki Market tour before the cooking class. It was nice to have someone to tell us what everything was! Taro met us there with another couple and he picked up the ingredients for our class as we walked around.

An old lady came up to me and offered me this octopus with a quail egg in its head. When in Kyoto, right? It was so good!

After our walk around the market, around 2 hours, we took the bus to Taro's house. His wife and the cutest kid I've ever seen welcomed us into their house. Seriously though, the little kid was dressed up as Sailor Moon. Be still my heart. Their house is SO beautiful. We really felt like home there.

Our class was small, about 6 couples -- all from different parts of the world. We sat around a table as Taro explained to us the menu and the origin of Kobe beef. He even showed us the certificate for the beef we were going to eat that day and checked it online. Then we moved over to his kitchen and he asked for volunteers as we cooked the menu. Except for the Kobe beef -- he cooked that himself as that particular piece was over $100!

Taro's daughter was such a little helper

Kobe beef with its certificate.

The final result!

Taro's class was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. He speaks English really well, his family is so welcoming and his knowledge of the ingredients helped us understand Japanese culture a little more. I would suggest adding the optional Nishiki Market tour, it's a real treat. Plan to be there a whole afternoon, until about six. You can book your class here, with Kobe beef or vegetarian.

Have you ever taken a cooking class in another country? If so, where?

These photos were taken in October 2013.

Japan's Hiroshima

After a few days in Tokyo, we headed down to Hiroshima for the day. Hiroshima was a must for me on this trip. In order to fit it in our itinerary, we made a stopover there on our way to Kyoto. We bought tickets for the Nozomi train so we could be there in a few hours. We could've used our Japan Rail Passes for this journey but since we were pressed for time, we paid the extra money. It was one of two times we had to buy tickets separate from our rail passes. Also, warning: this is a picture heavy post!

Our train left around 6 a.m. and with one quick stop, we would be in Hiroshima by 10:30 a.m. The train station was so quiet in the morning, right before the infamous Japanese rush hour started. Alex was hypnotized for most of our walk inside the train station, looking around and taking it all in. We found an open stall and picked up some bento boxes for breakfast. The ladies were so nice and helped us pick out two out of the 50 options they had available. The ride was so beautiful as we headed to the southern tip of the country.

Let me just say that it rained every day we were in Japan. We were even in the middle of a typhoon at some point. We were always wet and cold. It was really annoying. But on this day, as we arrived in Hiroshima, it was sunny and 80 degrees! It was such a gorgeous day.

With your Japan Rail passes, you can ride the JR loop bus for free! It goes around to all the main attractions in Hiroshima. We put our luggage in a locker at the train station and hopped on the bus. We went straight to the A-bomb memorial. On our way there we were astonished at how big this city is. It makes you realize how resilient human beings are in the face of adversity and how quickly we can learn and move forward.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is huge! They have a memorial for virtually every group that died that day. We walked around the memorial into the afternoon, saw a million cute kids on field trips and then hopped on the bus again and headed to the Hiroshima Castle.

A lot of castles, temples and pagodas in Japan burned down and were later rebuilt. Sometimes up to 5 times. But the Hiroshima Castle was destroyed by the atomic bomb. The current building is a hollowed out replica with a neat museum inside and observatory with a view of the city from above. It was worth the admission.

We headed back to the train station to catch our train to Kyoto and in typical Muriel fashion, I was hungry. We spotted a small ramen place under an escalator in the train station. I have no pictures but I could tell you that this one-man shop was the best ramen I had in Japan. Period. I still dream about it. I have no idea what the name of it was either. One day I will be back.

After that amazing ramen, I slept the whole train ride to Kyoto. It was so magical.

Have you been to Hiroshima? How did you feel when you were there?

Pictures taken on October 2013. All photos were edited with A Beautiful Mess actions. Get them here!