It seems Jools and I needed a holiday, as every morning we sleep long and deep, with the result Jen calls us about eaight each day to see if we're up, so we can rush round and get dressed and meet her by half past to eat. There is fruit, there is bread and a limited supply of coffee. But we survive. Thankfully.
Our destination today was Arashiyama.
Why there? Well, a few years ago on Flickr, I saw a shot of a walk through impossibly high bamboo, and it being right here in Kyoto, it seemed that it was something we should try to see.I ask att he front desk the best way, and she made it seem to bloody easy. I had a map of the metro, and the route marked out in felt tipped pen. Simples.
However, in the cold light of day, when standing outside a metro station, the map seemed to make no sense, and that the metro station we were outside seemed to be on the wrong line.
We walk back up the 50 steps, back over the bridge, past the Italian place, the hotel, turn right at the junction and up to the main square and down yet more steps to the metro, which as it turned out was on the same line as the first station we went to, but hey.
We took the metro to the end of the line, and the map we had suggested there was another station nearby. We climb yet more stairs up to the street, and I spy wheat I thought was a tram stop, as each side of the station the tracks ran on the streets in traffic. So we crossed the road and waited on the platform for the tram to turn up.
Only when it did it wasn't really a tram. Nor a train. Something inbetween perhaps? It was a vintage single car electric railcar, and at least there was room for us to get on, and were close enough to the front to be able to see the way ahead as the line mixed between running on streets, in gaps between houses or on what looked like a standard rail line.
By the time we arrive at Arashiyama the tram is full, so we all pile off, and so much for me worrying that there wouldn't be anywhere to grab something to eat, as it seemed we had arrived at the Japanese Margate, with street food, tat shops and the ubiquitous rickshaw rides all on offer, and for the most part smelling rather wonderful.
There is also a coffee shop on the station, so we pause there for a refuel and to watch the trams come and go, and admire the columns of the station, all of which had been decorated in kimono fabric, thus creating the kimono forest. Simple but very effective.
Out on the main street outside, there are people everywhere, mixing with the traffic trying to get past, and the rickshaw drivers who are everywhere. We join them turning right up the hill towards the bamboo walk. And at least the rain had held off so far, and I would get to see it. And snap it too.
I don't really know what I was expecting to be honest, some kind of art installation perhaps, but in the end it was a walk, a path wide enough to be a road. And indees taxis did come up dropping the infirm or American tourist at the top of the walk, this sparing them the 400 yard walk. The path switched between a normal wood and the bamboo grove. A grove which was some 50 feet tall and filled with bamboo as thick as your leg, and so tall turning to all shades of green as they reached for the sky.
At one point I found a place where there was a vantage point over the heads of other walkers, and just as I lines the shot up, the sun came out and brought the greens to vivid life.
