Monkey's

A couple weeks ago, my friend invited me to go to her homestay home to have dinner. I really love the Japanese house, although I have to duck between doorways... and there are a lot of them in their houses! Dinner was oishi! delicious! We all sat in the kitchen, because Japan doesn't have central heating and so there is one designated warm room, and ate using a Nabe cooking pot. The pot sits on the table and raw food is placed in it to cook and then you pull out what you want to eat with some broth and rice. We put niku (chicken), taco (octopus), ebi (shrimp), and various vegetables in there. After a long dinner (all meals are an event it seems), we went to karaoke!! Her okaasan and obassan were adorable and sang together. My favorite song was an Okinawa song that involved participation with whoops and claps. The most fun I've had at karaoke, yet! They were very sweet to invite me over with my limited (err basically non-existant) language abilities. Her okaasan didn't speak much English, but she was cute and "very animated" (according to the obaasan. So far my best times in Japan have taken place in local homes of Japanese families. I feel this is the best way to get to know who the Japanese are.

The next day, my Japanese speaking partner, Hiromi, her two Japanese friends, my roommate, and I went to Arashiyama. This is a mountainous area in Kyoto. We ended up renting bikes and then hiked up to the monkey park! After our strenuous hike up this mountain, we got to see many monkeys! There were about 150 monkeys on the top of this mountain. Hanging off of the building, climbing on benches, and playing on the park worker's motorcycles.
We then hiked back down, got on our bikes, and rode across the Togetsukyo Bridge, a wooden bridge where the name of the river changes based on which side the person is standing on. We also went through the bamboo forest and did a little omiage souvenir shopping. Lastly, we got some ice cream!