Kansai Part Two

A traditional Kyoto lunch: soba

Ohisashi-buri Kyoto!

My most awaited visit of the Kansai region was definitely Kyoto. The one day trip where I'd been to Kyoto before is maybe half the reason I wanted to return to Japan! I absolutely love everything about Kyoto, and as I've found out from my Japanese friends, they often love Kyoto the most too. 

Everything feels transcendent after visiting Kyoto. It's like, "Did I just see that all with my own eyes?" How have they preserved  this ancient capital so beautifully? There are so many temples that you step out from the gates of one and there's another right next door! Even now, the big city skyscrapers and ultra-modern Kyoto station seem to blend seamlessly with the old Kyoto image. You still see women walking in kimonos and rickshaw drivers for hire on the streets.  

But being able to live in Kyoto, drinking in the sights of your own Japanese garden, the surrounding walls and leaves of the plants absorbing the drone of the city when you return from your busy urban life; that would be superb.  It's such a one-of-a-kind city. Our first stop was Arashiyama, to the west.

Arashiyama

With Maiko in Arashiyama

Walking upriver

An absolutely perfect Japanese garden to the side of our soba restaurant. 

The gardens here can make anyone go halfway nuts. Every time I pass one, I just want to live there as a hermit forever. They are so old and so meticulously perfected, you can tell right away from the age of the pines and the luscious blanket of moss underfoot. Kyoto is 100% the mecca for Japanese gardens. And I would like to go on a pilgrimage here.

Kyoto is chock-full of gardens

The most important thing to see in Arashiyama was the bamboo forest. There are two in Kyoto, in Arashiyama and one in Sagano. These bamboo groves are maintained and thinned to keep the forest in its prime. Every once in a while on the path, there are gates to enter the forest, and I kept joking to my friends, "Well, here's my stop to my house, tell everyone I say hi!" Really, it was fantastic. 

Once we were really inside and surrounded only by bamboo and tourists, and the occasional taxi and rickshaw, it was so quiet, cool, and smelled wonderful. The sun shining through gave the culms all different colors and the canopy looked good enough to eat. And I'm not a panda.

A bamboo gate into a bamboo forest

 

The Arashiyama bamboo forest

 

 

 After we finished our bamboo stroll, I was in bliss. I was even happier when I found some plum trees blooming. Not just your usual white, but a bright magenta.

Early blossoms

 Right after taking the above picture, I ran after my friends downhill on an asphault road and proceeded to watch my iPhone fall out of my pocket and bounce down the road maybe 10 ten times before it slowed to a stop. The glass is completely swider-webbed but luckily it still works. $Ka-ching...just great.

Ryoanji Temple

After that, the Ryoanji Zen Buddhist Temple was next. It was a pain to get to, but once we got there, our troubles melted away. The main catch is it's "kare-sansui"dry stone zen garden. It's the most famous in Japan. It was made sometime in the 14-15 c. and it is comprised of 15 stones amongst white gravel. The gravel is raked daily, giving the image many Americans have of a "Japanese garden." It did not disappoint. Sitting on the stair of the temple looking over the rectangular garden, trying to interpret the intent of each grouping of stones (there was a Japanese guide behind us speaking), I immediately latched onto the beauty of dry gardens, something I thought I never would do.

Making our way towards Ryoanji, famous for it's "karesansui"-dry stone garden

  

Tsukubai fountain

  

A Kasuga lantern

The dry stone garden, bare of any photosynthetic material except the moss carpeting the base of the groups of rocks.

As much as I love usual gardens full of plants, I experienced such peace admiring this centuries-old relic of Japanese history. It's exact date of completion is not known, but sometime in the 14-15 century.

The surrounding gardens are full of perfectly carpeted moss ground.

  The gardens surrounding the temple were just gorgeous and we had the perfect weather to enjoy them.

My friends ahead of me.

  

Embracing afternoon sunlight

 Fushimi Inari Shrine

 Lastly, Fushimi Inari Shrine! We put this last on our list because it has no closing time. It is a Shinto shrine and its watching god is a fox with rice in it's mouth. Inari is the god of rice, so if you put two and two together you'll realize that it's a pretty darn important god for Shinto Japanese. It's said to have 32,000 sub-shrines throughout Japan. Each one of the red gates in this shrine was donated by a Japanese business.

The main gate to the shrine

Taking a fork in the road, we chose left after rock-paper-scissors. :)

I think the night view with the lanterns guiding us was almost more beautiful than it could have been during the day.

Crisscrossing shadows

We didn't even make it halfway up the mountain, but at our stopping point, we had the most dazzling view of the lights of Kyoto and could hear the hum of the city below us.

Kyoto, I can't wait to see you again. You leave such a perfect impression on my heart. Even if I broke the screen of my iPhone here, for now, it'll just be my sad little memory of perfect Kyoto.