Our last day with Sakura - Arashiyama - Awkward dates and lots of beauty

After the way to loud for such a nice area bikers parked and left us enjoy the area we explored the touristy island on the side of the river-

Walking down the side of the river brought us to the entrance to the famous "Monkey Park" that attracts people from all over.  If we didn't have a stroller and a macho baby to lug around I would have been up those couple hundred steps in a seco......hour.  

This bought complete with delish looking food, alcohol and not to rowdy looking party goers was screaming my name-

Again, without the stroller and baby I would have pressed on along upstream but alas....  We went back to the main island to find the bikers enjoying....ice cream cones?  Only in Japan.

This tree was attracting quite a few people taking pictures-

Aki was getting cranky from one of his macho urinations so we set him down under at tree here for a change.  What a nice place for a diaper change no?

Back at the popular tree with a fresh diaper-

After a quick beer to feel like an oyaji (look that one up) while looking at the trees, we left the touristy island to cross the touristy bridge to go to hopefully a less touristy area-

 

 
Love the track suits-

Taking a break-

Nice house-

We sat down at a river side shanty for some grub and had a wonderful view of the river and many boats cruising around. This guy, with his one oar, was having a hilariously hard time going anywhere and his lady friends face showed it-

 

I ordered some noodles not quite knowing what they were.  I was in the mood for some good soul food, Japanese or not, and this did NOT fit the bill-

Yukino's green tea ice cream with kinako (soybean flour) was great-

This guy was video taping his girl struggling.....ha! Jerk.

After our not to filling lunch this hand sewn one looked delicious.  Look closely...it's really hand sewn-

There are boats rides you can take from upstream and they look like a hoot to ride in.  There are some nice rapids that look like they would surely capsize one of these fiberglass thingies-

I too wanted to go up these steps but did not nearly have the same amount of will power this grandma had-

Rather, we took a back way that was more enjoyable I think and was pleasantly surprised when these guys turned up-

Just behind this perfect example of Japanese motoring was parked-

Finally, this statue looked perfect guarding over the rock garden behind it-

More coming soon!