Arashiyama

After two pretty long and cold days touring Kyoto, we opted for a shorter day today. This allowed for a slow start before we headed out to Saga Arashiyama station on the JR line. Arashiyama is a hill on the north-western edge of Kyoto, and is a pretty nice, compact region with a few different things to do. First cab off the rank was Tenryu-Ji, a Buddhist temple with one of the most famous Zen gardens in Japan. As with all Japanese temples, it's been burnt down numerous times but is nonetheless listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. The snow had stopped falling by now, but there was still plenty on the ground (and the occasional clump still sliding off the roof to keep you on your toes).

The temple garden led us into the Arashiyma bamboo forest, which is pretty amazing (while also being pretty crowded). From there we headed into Kameyama-Koen park, which was much less crowded and had a great view over the neighbouring Katsura River (as well as bountiful snow for making snowballs and snowmen).

From here, we headed down to the river and along to Togetsukyo bridge, an old wooden bridge across the river. Apparently, young children were forced to walk across this bridge as a rite of passage, without their parents. The rule was that if they didn't look back, then they would have good luck. We didn't test it. Personally, I was more interested in the mini-hydropower project there, where a small canal takes river water from a weir, and uses it to drive a turbine and thereby power the lights for the bridge...

There are many other interesting things to look at around here, but we had no time for that. Instead, we directed our energy towards the critical task of buying Katy a Japanese fan. This involves walking into every shop within a 2 mile radius to see if they sell fans; if they do, then we have to open each one, then we decide they are too expensive before moving onto the next shop. Anyway, on this occasion the task come to a successful conclusion:

We headed home early today, and sat at home for a couple of hours (listening to audiobooks in our kimonos) before braving the darkness for dinner. It was sushi again tonight, but nowhere near the quality of our sushi house in Yudanaka. Tomorrow we hope to head up into the hills north of Kyoto and try to find a nice walk through temples and villages, hopefully culminating in an onsen...