Today is probably the most “packed” day in our whole Japan trip. There’s quite a few places to head to today – and we couldn’t wait!
We woke up early for the complimentary breakfast – and this was the spread we got.
Home-baked breads with home-made jams, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, beverages, one whole big bowl of fruits, one bowl of soup of the day. Like I’ve mentioned, Mume provides very personalised service, and even before we arrived at the hotel, they’ve already asked for my diet restrictions. I’ve mentioned that I cannot take yogurt, citrus fruits, and they’ve taken all I’ve said into consideration, and on my side of our breakfast table, there’s no yogurt, and no traces of citrus fruits are found in my fruit bowl. How nice! Their strawberries were so sweet!
After filling our tummies with the nutritious and fulfilling breakfast, we set off to our first stop of the day – Kiyomizudera. Mume’s staff had already gave us very precise walking directions (and it’s not the regular tourist route too!), and we just followed his direction, and found ourselves at this very lovely and zen small path among traditional residential lodgings in Kyoto. It’s early, and it’s certainly not a tourist route, so the path is totally empty. It’s just so quiet, so peaceful, and so… so Japanese! (Sorry can’t help it! =P) We can’t take any pictures beyond this long corridor because it’s really residential area, so we respected the rule.
And before we knew it, we were well on our way to Kiyomizudera as we found ourselves at the famous Higashiyama District – one path flanked by rows of quaint shophouses selling souvenirs and food. Like I mentioned, we were super early hence most of the shops weren’t open. That’s good, because we have lesser distractions while going up the stairs to Kiyomizudera. But still, we did get ourselves distracted from time to time…
Finally we reached Kiyomizudera! On the side note, I noticed my knees were experiencing some sort of pain, especially when navigating the steps. Stabbing pain could be felt whenever I rested my weight on the knee while taking the steps. I was alarmed, as I never had that pain before. But I tried to put my fears aside for the time being, and slowly made my way up and down the stairs (and believe me, Japan had a lot of these stairs, especially at temples =( ).
We paid for the entrance fee to get into the temple’s grounds, and the view from the temple grounds was spectacular. It was unfortunate that my phone camera can’t capture just how amazing it looks from the temple, but it was really super breathtaking.
After spending about an hour there, we left and started popping into the souvenir shops that were now opened. My mom wanted a set of five pairs of chopsticks, and it was really hard to find something really nice. I ended up going into EVERY shop just to browse their collection, before I got really tired of it halfway through and stopped trying to find it. LOL. We also chanced into a hidden Studio Ghibli shop!
We were getting hungry, so we started hunting for food. Kyoto is very well known for soba, but Bruno really wasn’t a soba person. He however relented, and we finally stepped into a soba shop. I told him there’s udon option too, if he really didn’t want soba. He really ended up ordering soba, and he liked it! I ordered soba too, and I too have to admit that soba in Kyoto really tasted different from Singapore’s. The texture and taste are really quite different. I’m glad Bruno likes it though! I ordered the beef soba, and it’s really exceptionally good, despite it looking so simple.
We then made our way (via Google map) to Arashiyama – our next stop for the day. The famous Bamboo forest had been on my bucket list for quite a while already, and I was so excited that I will finally get to visit it (and strike it off the list!).Today was also the last day of Hanatouro festival, and I was so glad my planning was not thrown out of the window.
Arashiyama station looks so quaint and romantic…. really. I love it here already!
Koyo is actually still quite visible on some trees, which of course, excite us quite a bit. Whenever we see koyo, we would take out our cameras to snap some pictures of it, haha!
While on our way to Togetsukyo Bridge, we walked along the HUGE Katsura river, both of us being under the Water sign, we were both mesmerised by the river, and well, as usual, took lots of photos of it! As there would be the light up at night, we saw several exhibits on the bank of the river, most likely to be illuminated during the event in the evening.
After crossing the river, we decided to visit Tenryujin temple since we were still very early. We paid only for the entry to the garden, and not to the temple itself. The garden was beautiful, with a huge pond in the middle of it. Even though it was rather crowded with a lot of tourists, the calming atmosphere was still there, and we thoroughly enjoyed the short walk around the garden. My knees were giving me problems, but somehow I still managed to walk up and down the trail (with quite a bit of steps) and enjoying myself while at it.
Finally we left Tenryujin and found ourselves right at the start of the bamboo grove trail. It was only like 3pm in the afternoon, while the illumination will only start at 5pm. We decided to just walk into the forest first, and u-turn out for the event later. The trail was actually rather short, but it was really very calming even though the entire trail was super crowded. Even gentle breeze will cause the bamboos to sway and there’s the gentle “swiiissssshhhh” sounds from above. So peaceful! Totally LOVE it.
We reached the end of the trail, and were debating whether to continue or u-turn already to wait for the event. But it was still really early, and I needed the loo quite urgently, and we suddenly discovered there’s another garden Okochi Sanso right next to the trail. We checked the entrance fees, and holy molly it was expensive. No wonder so many people turned back after they saw the prices! But well, I really need to release my bladder, so I thought what the heck – just pay for it and we’ll have a small garden to explore till 5pm anyway. Bruno kept laughing at me for “the most expensive toilet trip”, until he saw just how big the garden was – and how lovely the trail was! Due to the steep admission fees, there were very very few tourists and most of the time we felt we were the only ones in the huge garden! Here are some photos we took while on the trail around the garden – absolutely breathtaking!
The admission fee also included a complimentary cup of green tea and snack, which we enjoyed in their small and simple teahouse. We were also given a very nice postcard in a sleeve which has some info of the garden printed on the paper. Very elegantly done. The matcha was so good – thick and just so very slightly sweetened. And the snack was so airy on the inside, but so crumbly on the outside – it’s hard to explain the texture of it but it’s a good pairing with the matcha.
We reluctantly exited the garden at around 4.30pm, and went back to the start of the bamboo forest trail and sat on the curb to wait for the Hanatouro illumination to start. Many tourists (and locals too) were waiting at the start of the trail too. At 4.59pm, everyone started pointing their cameras/phone/video recorders high up at the bamboo forest, and at 5.00pm sharp, the bamboo forest lit up and a collective gasp was heard sweeping across the crowd. It was beautiful! We started moving into the trail. Bruno was capturing the whole walk as a video, so I was walking slightly behind him so that he won’t get bumped at from behind. It was getting really cold, and I found myself starting to shiver quite a bit. Nevertheless we reached the end of the trail, and we just followed the crowd to continue moving along the path, and found more illumination exhibits.
We finally made our way back to Togetsukyo Bridge to find dinner, and we saw that there’s a HUGE crowd on the opposite side of the brdige, coming from the train station and they had to queue to cross the bridge! The crowd was really so huge, but everyone behaved in an orderly fashion – so that was nice to see! We randomly picked a restaurant, and went in to get our tummies filled. I ordered a tempura udon – which wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t super fantastic either. Decent, I’d say.
Finally, we’re done with the most packed day in the entire trip! Satisfied that I finally get to strike the Arashiyama Bamboo forest off my list, we slowly made our way back to Mume. Tiring, but absolutely satisfying day.
For more photos on this day, please click on my Flickr album link here.
For Japan Trip 2017 itinerary / content page, please click here.
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