東映映画村/嵐山 (Toei Eigamura/Arashi Yama)

In case you see those Japanese words in the title and think this entry isn't about anything exciting, I will quickly dispel those doubts. First off, lets do a mini game. I will tell you that Eiga means movie, and Mura is means village. The kanji for Toei are those for east and for reflection, so that doesn't mean much. Some people my age may realize that Toei is a company. A company that makes movies and tv shows- popular things like the Power Rangers and Sailor Moon. So if you put all those clues together, you should be able to figure out where we went...
We went to the Toei Studio Park in Kyoto Japan, where the entire park can be used as various movie sets for period movies and shows. Most of the town looks like a historic Edo period city, something out of the feudal days of Japan. Other parts of the park look like they are a town in Meiji period (Victorian era) Japan, cobble stone streets, a court house, restaurants...there are also plenty of other tourist things to do, like see performances, tour museums, a haunted house, and more.
Alex and I took our usual 7:55 train to Hikone, and we got on the bus that was waiting for us right outside the station. I had packed in a rush, so I forgot to bring anything to occupy myself with for the 1 1/2 hour bus ride, so I just made the back of the bus turn into the craziest/coolest place to be, if I do say so myself, by just being silly and having fun with friends.

 We arrived there quite early in the morning, so there were hardly any people in the park at first, despite it being one of the warmest, sunniest days of this rainy season. We headed through the sparsely occupied 17th century village whose house fronts were laden with overpriced souvenirs. Along the way, we saw things like this: 

 

Finally we reached our destination- the theater. We were just in time for the 10:20 showing of the ninja show. I have a video. I know I seem to have excuses as to why I can't subtitle things, but anyone who is studying Japanese will agree with me about this. Samurai/Old Japanese is very hard to translate. They use a whole different set of vocabulary, so you may be able to understand none of it, but I couldn't understand that much of it either. But the show opened like this:

Sorry it stops so suddenly XD my camera died. At that point the good ninja does this trick where he splits in two and defeats that guy. It turns out there are actually two ninjas who were (I think) father and son. This villain here was not their main villain. They had a much bigger foe the needed to find: this guy: 

 Once he came down from his balcony, giving his menacing speech, and stalking through the crowd. He approached the group of Americans with his arm stretched towards us...and...

 **zing** goes the sound effects

 "Irasshaimase!" he shouted in welcome as the lights went up and happy music went on. He laughed and did a bit of audience chit chat and took pictures with anyone who wanted to. I would have, but I was sitting behind the rope that blocked us off from the aisle and it would have been awkward to get out there. These nice pictures I stole from my friend's camera, by the way...

^Villain-san and my friend Helen

After that, he went back to being evil and he used a clone jutsu to make himself look like the father and attack the son, and then more fighting ensued, and eventually the real father showed up and he was mortally wounded, but somehow...the good guys won...yeah, like I said, I hardly understood anything XD

Sorry I could lay that out in a more convenient way. It is impossible to deal with the picture layout on this blog. :/

In the park we did various other fun things. I didn't want to pay to go in the haunted house since it was 500 yen, but I hear it was really really scary. There were lots of other fun things to do there, and as a souvenir I did buy myself a little cell phone charm. :)

This weird old man's head popped out of the mountain and started playing music

In the recording booth! It's hard for me to read Japanese that fast, so I sorta failed

I can lift one side by myself...

...but it takes 6 people to lift me up... T__T

The Happy Ninja Family

wow, that last picture made me realize how tall I am compared to Japanese people...I tower above my host family...aw...I guess we should take an awkward family picture at some time so I can show you that...but I diverge.

Dinooo

The 19th century part of the park

Red Rangers!

Power Ranger Villains

Toei makes One Piece, so it was everywhere

fountain!

So that there was the park! And that's not all though. We got back on the bus by 1:20, but we weren't going home. Remember how the title of this entry had a / in it? Yeah, we were on our way to that place I named after that back slash,  Arashiyama Monkey Park.

Now, I was aware there was going to be a little bit of climbing to get to this park. It's name has yama in it after all, and that means mountain. But the way we were told, it was supposed to be hardly anything, just like how it is to climb up to Hikone Castle maybe. But no. This was a hike. This was a hike that was long and steep and in the middle of a humid jungle. After climbing for ten minutes and seeing the "You are here" sign that put me hardly a fourth of the way up, I just plopped onto a bench. I was joined by several other lagers who also were deterred by this sign, until we eventually decided we had enough strength to get to the top. Once we made it, we were greeted by smelly, red faced, stumpy tailed Japanese macaques, which the Japanese just call Saru, which means monkey. They do not distinguish monkey species, obviously. The monkeys just walk around, but you aren't supposed to touch them or look at them in the eye in case they take it as a challenge. To give them food, you go in a little hut and buy some fruit or nuts or something and the monkeys hang to the caging on the outside and reach their hands in and you can hand them food.

Kyoto

The monkeys are scared of the wild pig XD

After spending a good long time up there with the monkeys, we headed down and back to the bus. So I didn't really get to experience Kyoto, and I was allowed to stay behind if I wanted to, but it's not like the shops are open forever, so I wouldn't get to do much. I really want to go back and experience the city itself.
But on the bus, everyone was just so tuckered out, I think my friend Franny and I were the only ones awake practically. After the trip home, us famished home stay kids went to McDonalds and got stuff from the 100 yen menu- I got an AMAZINGLY delicious crispy chicken sandwich and then something called "shaka shaka chicken". You get a flavoring powder and you put that together with your chicken in a bag and you shake it so your chicken is covered in the flavoring. I swear, Japanese McDonalds has ruined fast food for me forever, because now I'll go to fast food places in America and expect it to taste good. 
So that was the day! We just came home and ate actual dinner and just chilled in our room until going to bed. Speaking of bed, I think I should hit the hay now. This blog is the new record for longest taking blog since I started it before 7 and it's now 10:30. So good night!


Mary


Location: Let's say it all together now: My Bed!
Mood: Giggly （＾ｖ＾）
Listening to: Cut Me Free - Olivia Lufkin
Japanese for the day: 写真を取ってもいいですか。しゃしんをとってもいいですか。shashin o totte mo ii desu ka? - May I take a picture? (We say this soooo often here to random people! XD)