The Arashiyama monkey park is a nice place to spend an afternoon with hyperactive kids whose restlessness will be on fire after a week of temple visits. Plus, being on top of a hill, the kids will spend some energy reaching the place, guaranteeing 10 extra minutes of sleep to the parents the following night.
But is it any good? Well, there are more than 150 monkeys so you will get a serious dose of... monkeys. It is not very well known to tourists that monkeys are naturally present almost everywhere in Japan, but they can be elusive. Your best bet to spot them would be to go to more remote valleys like Kurama, Kibune or Ohara. But it's not exactly advisable to approach them in the wild, as they can be pretty aggressive. In the park, however, they have little pressure from the environment as they are fed (which is probably the only way to keep them roughly within the limits of any park). You can therefore observe them, shoot nice pictures, and see them fight. Young ones are particularly cute ;-) Do keep a firm grip on young kids though, because even though it's a park, those monkeys are not pets...
The bad news is that it's not a place of beauty. The hut there is horrible, with its fence through which you can (relatively safely) feed the monkeys. I saw a derelict bike in a corner, and random other things lying around. Strange as this could be used by monkeys, but I guess they are intelligent enough not to mess with man-made objects. A little bonus: from the park you will have a beautiful view on Kyoto city, weather permitting of course. Access: Nearby: Hōrin-ji 法輪寺 (260m), Hōgon-in 宝厳院 (640m), the Yusa-tei 祐斎亭 (670m), Tenryū-ji 天龍寺 (710m), Rinsen-ji 臨川寺 (760m), Kōgen-ji 弘源寺 (800m), the Bamboo alley 嵯峨竹林 (920m), Nonomiya-jinja 野宮神社 (980m), the Okochi Sansō villa 大河内山荘 (990m), Shōkaku-ji 正覚寺 (1km),... External links: Website, Wikipedia, Kyoto Navi, Trip Advisor, Inside Kyoto, Satellite view, Map Keywords: Japan, 日本, Japon, Kyoto, 京都, arashiyama, 嵐山, Arashiyama Monkey Park, 嵐山モンキーパーク Statistics: id 483, 7 photos (5 extra photos can be found in the archive). |
