Arashiyama Iwatayama Monkey Park, Kyoto

It's now Summer Break! No school, so more time to explore and relax. Thus, the less than half a day trip to Kyoto to visit Iwatayama Monkey Park...

While walking from the Arashiyama Hyakyu Station, you will get to see the river and mountains scenery to get to the park. Oh ya! There is a bicycle rental store near the station if you are interested to rent a bicycle there to explore...

Since I reached there around 2pm, the weather was abit cloudy but the temperature was around 33 degree...

Well, it was supposed to be a visit to the bamboo forest, but end up reading the map wrongly thus, ended up visiting this park instead...

550 yen to enter the park, and thus, the 20-30 minutes uphill to the top...

You are advised not to give any monkey any food outside, there are monkey snacks about 100 yen available at the hut at the top, which is the only place where you are allow to feed them.

I surprised to find a mini playground for kids here near the rest stop, and the hut behind is a air con hut that you can take a break there. The weather is really hot especially when you need to hike uphill for 20-30 mins.

Finally to the top ! But this isn't really the top, as there are stairs behind which lead to a higher place which I did not explore. But, the view here is really not bad!

Maybe it was the heat, but there was not a lot of monkey around during this timing.

You only get to feed them when you are inside this hut! At least is the human that they caged up and not the monkey. haha ~

Apparently the monkey here are quite well behave *personal thought* haha

At the back of the stairs, where there are more monkeys to be found..

Find the monkey ~

guessed it is as thirsty as everyone during summer.

time to go down hill!

I wonder if this was a shortcut?

One thing great about Japan, is that they give out fan or paper *which act as a fan too* during summer period. This is probably one of the thing that will save your from the heat!

Since I had some time before going back to Osaka, went to explore a little bit of Arashiyama street.

Even at 5pm plus, there still lots of people visiting the bamboo forest.. want a empty photo shot of the bamboo forest? This is a part of a private property, which is possible to take a quick shot from the outside since there wasn't any sign to stop you from taking.

Shall explore the bamboo forest another day...

I guess stations located nearer to natural sightseeing places have nicer aesthetic looking. Well, it was a good short trip, which cost 400 yen per trip from Umeda, Osaka to Arashiyama. Take the super express train will be about 40 mins to reach, while the normal train will take an hour plus to reach...

Wonder where to explore next...