Day 8--Kyoto, Japan

Bill and I have been here before but this morning we went to the Temple of the Golden Pavilion... so pretty and the grounds were absolutely stunning! There were sooo many people there, it was really crowded! All of Japan has been that way... so many foreigners, not just Americans, too! Korea was pretty quiet-- it was kinda nice. There were tourists, but not like here. When we were in Japan in 2020 there weren't anywhere near this many in Japan either!!! We walked around the grounds and enjoyed all the buildings on the property. We found a snow cone place on this little quiet street in Kyoto off the beaten path and it was pretty good! They were huge! Then we headed over to the bamboo forest which was just as pretty as the last time we were there. We got some really pretty pictures there, but again... LOTS of people! I found some Dr. Pepper in a vending machine while I was waiting for everyone before we headed up to the Monkey park... I had a bunch of change in Yen so I tried to buy some and it wouldn't come out, so I kept trying and trying... another guy came up and used the machine and got one out just fine. Turns out, I was trying to use Korean wan! The coin looked exactly the same as the Japanese yen coin and had the same amount on it!!! So Bill put in his change and got everyone one! Hahaha! You can't fool a Japanese vending machine! We HIKED and by hiked I mean HIKED, up to the Monkey park. It was a half hour of straight up climbing! We were lucky it was a very cool day or we would've been covered in sweat! It was so worth it though because there were monkeys everywhere. We were the ones enclosed, not them! They were wandering everywhere and you could go inside a little hut and buy food and feed them too. (Megan, Todd, Brooke and Ben did it.) They were so fun to watch-- we stayed there for quite a while until it was time to make that hike back down the side of the mountain. First we got a great picture with Kyoto in the background. That night we went to dinner at a yummy Shabu Shabu place and it was SOOO GOOD!!! The servers were super animated and fun and had us shouting something they told us to repeat-- hahaha! They were super cute and tried so hard to speak English with us! After that we went back to our hotel and played cards for a bit and then everyone was so tired we decided to just go to bed!!!