We're in Arashiyama
It's about 15 minutes from Kyoto Station
By train
The walk from the station
Is full of touristy shops selling souvenirs and snacks
And there's lots of traditional Japanese-looking houses and trees
It feels like we're on the edge of the countryside here
With all the mountains in the background
And behind me it's the famous Moon Crossing Bridge
It's hard to see why it's so famous
It's actually a pretty plain bridge
But the setting here is really amazing
What's hard to capture in the video
Is how wide the river is
And how big that mountain is behind us
It just doesn't seem to be coming across in pictures
And when I've seen pictures of it before
It didn't look as impressive as it does in real life
Lots of the Japanese mountains I've seen round here have been covered in trees like this
It's a really characteristic look
And all the old houses
And the trees look really traditional Japanese
We've walked a bit upstream
And it's a lot quieter up here
Away from the main area
We also saw a place that has a sightseeing boat trip
Which was closed today
Not sure why
But if that's something you want to do
Check that out
See that restaurant across there - gives a sense of the scale
And how tall the mountain is
We are here
Here's the river
And there's the path of bamboo
Which I definitely want to see
So we're wondering
If the summit observation deck is going to involve a lot of stairs!
So I think we're going to go
Up here
Have a look at that
And then to the bamboo
We've just come up from the river
There's a restaurant down here
Looks really nice but it's fully booked
Visit us and look forward to!
We're going up to the summit
How were the stairs?
It wasn't too bad!
I think that's all of them!
If you go up the stairs
There's a few observation decks up here
And you can get some really good views of the river
It's definitely worth it
That's it - we've reached the end!
We're off to the bamboo forest!
Now I've been to a bamboo forest in Kamakura
Just a small one
And I really loved it
It was the best thing we did on the trip
So I'm not expecting to love this one quite as much
But I do love me a good bamboo forest
We might be coming up to the bamboo
In pictures I've seen it's got fences like this
Along the sides
We've ended up back here!
So we must have taken a wrong turning somewhere
But I do like how there's all these paths you can explore in the forest
So we're going to go back up
And all the way round to the bamboo
Look there's some imposter trees!
Bamboo garden thoughts?
It is cool
And it's a lot bigger than the one in Kamakura
But I'll always love the Kamakura one best!
Kanji progress:
On the edges of the roof there
The top kanji means "sky"
Which is pronounced ten
The bottom left means "hour"
Which is pronounced "ji"
And the name of the temple is "Ten-Ryu-Ji"
I don't know what the one on the bottom right means
It was cool walking through the bamboo forest
And it was really beautiful
And hearing the wind through the bamboo leaves
Was really peaceful
And it actually wasn't as crowded as I thought it was going to be
But the reason I like the one in Kamakura better
Even though it's a lot smaller
Is because you're on stepping stones walking through the bamboo
And it's really peaceful and there's hardly anyone there
And this one, you're on a path
With fences
And it feels like you're walking through the bamboo
Rather than actually being in it
But it was good anyway!