A few days ago I traveled to Monkey Mountain which is in the South Of Kyoto, Monkey Mountain is basicly a researve for the Japanese Snow Monkey - on a mountain. After paying 500 Yen to enter I, along with Isao( Isao used to work for Rick at the martial art shop in NZ for a few years) & his wife headed up the hill. The researve is an open zoo, so you have to be carefull not to stare at the monkeys for they go bannanas and will try to destroy you, this is difficult as they look funny and its really hard not to stare at them...
When we reached the top of the mountain there was an incredible view back over Kyoto city, and a small shop were one can purchase monkey food to feed them with. I could not pass up such an opportunity, so I purchased a bag of Bannanas for 100 Yen (like 2 dollars) so began to hand feed my favourite monkeys. You can you feed them like you feed a horse with an open hand, otherwise they might pull your fingers off. It was kinda cute as they put their little monkey hand out and take the bannana and run away a few feet to peel it and munch it down as if theyv stolen it from you.
There was one big boss monkey that had a huge pile of dozen of bannana skins next to him who obviously was running they show, so to be polite and pay my respects I fed him a few bannanas. I got a few pictures of the Monkeys doing Monkey buisiness but I'm not sure how to post them on this site yet so check my facebook or ask for an email of them, they are seriously awesome monkeys.
After we had seen enough of the monkeys we walked back down the hill to the road where we had parked our bikes, at the same time as we reached the bottom I heard this big thundering roar, which by the second was getting louder. Out of nowhere a big Japanese motorbike gang came hooning around the corner over the bridge on these big Harley Davidsons, it was kinda comical as they looked exactly like a Western Biker Gang with their patches and leather vests etc so I had to laugh (behind my hand)
Yestday ( the day after the monkey experience) I headed over to the International Centre planning to do not much just chill out and email some people, but discovered upon my arrival that it was closed for the day for some strange reason. I was most disapointed by this turn in events, another guy was trying to get in aswell so we decided to go tramping in some nearby mountains instead, he's been here for about 6 Months on a working holiday visa from Greece so he sorta knew were to go which was cool. The mountains & forest were really tranquil and peacefull with lots of random shrines to various gods spread among the forest. I have to say the one let down was lots of litter around the place, I know its close to the city but still, it was a bit gross seeing it desecrating was would otherwise be a really nice nature trek. when we were about 20 minutes in we heard this russling and WAM out of nowhere there is this huge Snake! I was really suprised and confused - Japan has snakes?!?!? It was really large and within 2 meters of us so I was a little nervous as Iricles explained there are poisonous and non poisonous snakes in Japan and we were unsure which category this on fell into. After a few minutes of standing off with the serpant it got bored and hooned off at top speed into a creek and sorta surfed away.
Iricles told me that a few months ago he had been tramping nearby and wandered into a clearing that had a horde of Wild Japanese pigs with tusks and all snortling about and that he had to make a run for it. It seems every animal in Japan is really aggressive, especially if you stare at it. Maybe I shouldnt wish this upon myself, but I actually really do hope I see a wild Bear next time I head out, it would be pretty cool. I suppose I would have to be quite stealthy and sorta sneak up close to get a picture.
Apart from seeing various native animals I have been doing Judo at Kyodai (Kyoto Uni) everyday. The training here tough, going for 3 hours 6 times a week, my stamina and strength is getting better each day so perhaps in a few weeks I can start doing two of these a day. They all seem to have pretty bad cauliflower ear which im trying to avoid getting while I'm here, but when I try to defend a strangle/choke when doing randori (full contact sparring) they allways ram their hands and knuckles past my ears until I move my hand up to cover them. Then my neck is exposed and its lights out.
There is one Judoka (Judo Player) that trains here that I have started to call Warlou, as for some reason whenever he does anything he shouts WARLOUU!!! in a really deep voice. I have no idea what it means, or why he does it, but without fail whenever we do anything - pushups, Randori (sparring), warm ups I hear this booming WARLOUU intermittently every 20 or so seconds. Seriously, he was a bit late the other day and while I was training I heard this muffled WARRLOUU!! coming from the changing room, and sure enough he emerged in his Judo Gi (Judo Uniform) a few minutes later. I would find this funny and maybe imitate him if he wasnt one of the toughest players there, hes only 5'10 ish tall but hes about as wide as he is tall and built like a brick shithouse. I actually thought I had his neck for a strangle from behind with his face pushed into the tatami (mat) but then I heard this muffled WARLOU!!! from under me, a few seconds later he kinda exploded, flipped me around and got me in an Armbar.
While the training is really hard and exhausting I'm enjoying it heaps and know I made the right decision in coming over here. In a couple of days Lee & Tim will be arriving from NZ and then we will be heading over to Ritsumeikan University to train regularily which is tougher than Kyodai, it will be interesting to see how that goes..
J
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