Arashiyama/Monkey Mountain

There IS more to Kyoto than temples and shrines. Today, we went to a sweet small town outside of Kyoto called Arashiyama. 20 years ago, I came here to visit Monkey Mountain and I knew Elle and Liam would love to see the monkeys. It's been commercialized and developed now, before the monkeys were completely wild on the mountain, but it still made for a fun day out. We took two trains, walked through town and then had a 20 minute mountain hike to get to the monkeys. Just when I was beginning to question our adventure, a monkey popped out along the path. They were everywhere and completely adorable. Tourists are able to feed them by hand behind a wire fence, but otherwise you can interact with them freely in the wild. The only advice was "do not stare them in the eye". Elle and Liam were both a bit freaked out at first, but after the first monkeys greedily took peanuts from their hands they were greatly amused.

The children were out in full force Sunday in Arashiyama. It's the first time we have seen many children at all in Japan. Japan's birth rate is so low and the decline in births has been so dramatic over recent years that the Japanese have invented a word for it - "shoshika" meaning, childless society. The reasons for such decline are many, but include discrimination in the workplace towards women who bear children and various government policies. The population is expected to shrink by 20% by mid century unless the trend reverses. Recently, a former prime minister urged Japanese women to "stay home and breed". Predictably, woman weren't motivated by this command and in record numbers are choosing to not get married and breed, and instead to stay in the workforce. But yesterday, in Arashiyama, there were children.