Well, spring has officially re-sprung here in Kyoto, so I was up bright and early to visit Arashiyama, a district to the east of the city that I’d not yet reached in my travels to date.

Arashiyama is most known for it’s forest of soaring bamboo trees, which gives off a quite ethereal light when the sun’s at the right angle (which it was), but doesn’t lend itself particularly well to capturing on film. I suppose Arashiyama’s bamboo grove must just be one of those places that looks really awesome in real-life 3D, but – at least in my case – all you end up having to show for it afterwards is about 300 pictures in isolation of random sodding trees… These were some of my best efforts, at any rate:

From here, it was a hop skip and a jump to the neighbouring Tenryu-ji Temple, which had some really lovely, peaceful gardens, with a smattering of cherry blossom still in evidence here (oh Christ, there I go again with the garden love, Dad and Lorraine – this is getting seriously worrying now…).

I can’t be turning into too much of a closeted horticulturalist quite yet though, as I didn’t stick around particularly long here fawning over flora (geddit?), but instead headed over the nearby wooden Togetsu-kyo Bridge and up to the Arashiyama Monkey Park, situated at the top of a very steep nearby hill – but with good views out over Kyoto, and with a giant novelty banana to boot… Not to mention some very contemplative looking monkeys too…

After a spot of light lunch (sushi followed by a matcha ice cream – bliss!), it was then up the Sagano Railway, a narrow gauge train that runs along the Hozugawa River gorge, with scenic views out over Arashiyama’s pleasant array of forests and mountains.

Oh, and I don’t know who these little guys are (are they bears…? Some form of rodent…? I really couldn’t say…), but they were bloody everywhere in Arashiyama:

So all in all, a pretty chilled, low-key, pleasant, springtime kind of a day really – and I do apologise for the ongoing lack of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll on this front (my most hedonistic point of the day being the ice cream, I think… 😀 !).

I thought it would still be worth a quick check in on here though, as I’m off to the (comparatively at least) more remote Koya-San tomorrow on something of a mini monastic retreat, and I’m not sure what the deal is with wifi – both in terms of availability while I’m there, or my own potential ability to sufficiently zen out to a point I could actually make it a day or two without (hah!).

Either way, have a great Easter all and I’ll check in when I can… Bye for now!

PS: I am reliably informed that those little guys are tankai, a Japanese racoon. Apparently you can tell by the giant scrotums.