Hi guys,
We got up early that morning to catch a train to Arashiyama, where the famed bamboo grove were!
We initially intended to leave our Ryokan at 6am so we can get there at 7am, so we can have the place to ourselves. But expectations are just expectations, fact always differs. Our journey goes as below:
- Find the Sanin Main Line (山陰本線) at Kyoto Station
- Took the train to Saga-Arashiyama
- From the entrance of the station, we took a U-turn to our right and follow a small suburban path to the bamboo grove.
It took us about an hour to find our way there from Kyoto Station.
Arashiyama Bamboo Grove
The area was rather impressive from afar, but when we got there, our expectations were damaged a little. Because it wasn’t as impressive as the photos we see online. The number of bamboo were not as much as I would’ve expected, at parts it seem a little sparse with other trees growing within the grove like weeds on a flowerbed.
Then we heard loud chainsaw noises from within and lots of bamboo were fell by workers. I assumed that they were trimming them to not have the bamboo get too overgrown in this small area. I guess it’s not healthy. Just like how I dislike crowded places, it’s not healthy.
I read some other photography sites and they mentioned cloning the bamboos in their shots, so I did something like that with the below shot. I think I still like the real thing because it’s real, not faked with some software on a computer.
It was quite a challenge trying to set my tripod here because of human traffic, so we were so glad we found a smaller deserted area within the grove, away from the main paths. We went on and take a number of photos here, making Claire walk back and forth. It was fun, for me at least. LOL.
Then we passed the train track crossing where I attempted to take some kind of moving-train-shot. Didn’t turn out the way I wanted, but well we can’t be wasting time waiting for the next train so we went on our way.
Yojiya Cafe
We spot Yojiya Cafe and while we didn’t want to waste money on this kind of hyped-up-sh*t. Claire was tired from all the walking so I thought why not take the opportunity to gain some bragging rights and take a breather at the same time.
Well I’m not so sure about the bragging rights, because Yojiya isn’t Chanel if you know what I meant, and the price was nothing to joke about for just a cuppa. I forgot how much it cost, but it wasn’t worth it at all. The ambiance was nice, like every other cafe. So. Yeah.
After that splurging on a cup of joe with Yojiya’s face, we moved on to the Katsura river to look for the Togetsu Bridge. It’s famous for being modelled like a wooden structure, but it kinda look like concrete to me.
Katsura Riverbank and Togetsu Bridge
Anyways, I ran down closer to the river bank. It was a steep rocky slope, and there is no way for Claire to follow. That explains her showing me that ‘WTF’ sign. LOL.
Well she eventually found a way down to where I was standing and we of course had to take a photo together, and many more photos of her.
We decided to skip crossing the bridge to the other side of the river and head over to queue for coffee at %Arabica. This branch is really popular, largely due to the view I bet. It took us an hour to wait for our turn, and there were no space for us to hang around in the shop to take in all the decorations within.
Not that I care that much, as long as the coffee is good, everything else is just secondary.
After our coffee break sitting by the river, we walked to Ten-ryu-ji where we decided it was too repetitive to visit another temple again in this trip, so we left shortly after to visit Kiyomizu Dera. Not before taking more photos of the place and a quick meal of cheap udon near the station.
Kiyomizu Dera Revisited
And then we took the train and walked our way back to Kiyomizu Dera, this time round we were not in kimono so it’s much easier to navigate in the sea of human beings.
We bought our tickets and went into the temple, the main hall was getting some restoration works done at the time, so in the end we really didn’t do much here. More like just going through the motion of visiting so that we can mark this place off our list, that sort of thing.
Nope, not us.
Over here, we joined the queue to drink from the Otowa waterfall, it is said that drinking from one of the 3 streams will either grant long life, success in school, or a good love life. We had no idea which is which and it is considered greedy to drink from all 3. So we just randomly drank from one and be done with it. Just for the experience.
While I thought a temple is supposed to be a peaceful place, this place is too much of a tourist attraction that I don’t feel at peace at all with so many tourist around me. It is a beautiful place nonetheless if you can omit all the human traffic though, I guess we should really visit in the morning like most guides mentioned.
Alas, we finished our day with this, stay tuned for the next day where we go back to Fushimi Inari shrine in the morning to take a nice photo of the Senbon Torii gates.
-Simon Tey
