Today I took a little adventure to what the Rough Guides calls the leafy suburb of Kyoto Arashiyama.
My goal was to go somewhere different, to get into the hills of Kyoto and get out of the urban chaos of Osaka. Don’t get me wrong I love Osaka, but so far on this trip I have been only in the urban jungle and wanted to get out and experience the more serene elements of Japan.
To get to Arashiyama I took the Shinkasen to Kyoto, and transferred to a local train 20 minutes outside of Kyoto.
My first impression was of the simple, lovely and understated JR station in town. The guide book said that I would have to walk 15 minutes to get to the center of town. I think they were covering themselves because within seven minutes I hit the river and within 10 had hit my first Temple. However, first I wandered into a couple shops – had a green tea ice cream and watched this guy make what I think was a form of Tofu.
Across the street from the tofu maker was Tenryuji Temple – I have to be honest I glossed over the historical significance and saved my money from actually going inside and paid the 500 yen to just explore the gardens. Tenryuji is a world heritage site. The gardens were very impressive-tightly designed with each turn carefully constructed to create a vision of harmony. Of course the hordes of school kids (adolescents) really didn’t help a sense of contemplation, but somethings can’t even damper a place like this. When I hit the bamboo forest I knew the day was worth it. The garden winds up a hill around a pond and at the very edge of the garden is a bamboo grove carefully sealed off from the rest of the garden. There is a viewing hut, but the real pleasure is when you officially leave the garden and walk down this alley, where a stick lays out a path between the towering bamboo. There is a hush under the dark glad and not to be overly dramatic but it does have a magic feel. Don’t think I can adequately capture the feeling of walking down the path but the pictures may give you a little bit of the sense of the place.
Had lunch at a great little place run by two cute ladies in their ‘50’s. Soba with Herring and some pickles!
Next was a Temple called Nembutsu-ji at Adashino. It was a burial ground that became a buddhist Temple – very interesting with lots of stone buddhas and grave markers. I have a ton of pictures that I can add later.
Finally, because this post is taking so long – I found this pond and walked back to the station.
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