I checked out from my hotel early and had to miss breakfast so as to get to the Arashiyama bamboo forest. Oh, just a quick word on my hotel, it’s a new-ish hotel in Kyōto and the staff is the friendliest ever. My room on the 10th floor was small but perfect for a solo traveller like myself. Last night, one of the receptionists, a young hipster-esque moustachio-ed chap with a topknot(!), greeted me with an okaeri nasai followed by a gracious assalamu’alaikum. First it was being greeted by name in Tokyo and now the staff knows how to greet me with a salam? Wow just doesn’t cut it.

Back to the trip to Arashiyama, with it being a JR line train that stops at Saga-arashiyama, my JR pass meant not a penny, well, yen was spent on this short detour.

After a ten minute walk from the station, this vista greeted me:

The tranquility was indescribable. Save for the sounds from the occasional bicycles, coming here in the morning before the hoardes of tourist was a good call. This area west of Kyōto in general (嵐山 means storm mountain) was a spot loved by many nobles back in the Heian period. Peppered in Arashiyama are little villages and temples, one of which was Tenryuu-ji, also a UNESCO Heritage Site. As I wanted to hit central Kyōto before leaving for Tokyo, I gave Tenryuu-ji a miss despite being at the temple ground’s entrance, as well as the famous bridge called Togetsukyo. There’s also the Kōryū-ji, the oldest temple in Kyōto, which is reachable at the Uzumasa stop on the same train line, but this makes a great excuse to come back, no?

I made my way to 京都御所 「Kyōto-gosho」 (Imperial Palace) by noon as I didn’t feel like doing any more temples. Which was the best decision ever. The sakura had just bloomed and weren’t as ubiquitous as I expected, but there was enough to keep the local Kyōto-ites[1] happy. I found a nice spot and sat myself down under a pine tree to watch people walk by. The best two hours spent that day.

Thinking to myself under that pine tree, I knew I will want to return to Kyōto one day. The best seasons in Japan are spring and autumn when it comes to savouring the sights, and a future autumn trip sounds like a plan. I remembered telling a friend that Kyōto beats Tokyo hands down (albeit a premature statement made somewhat unfairly) thus far. Not because of a temple-visited box-ticking exercise, everything about the trip thus far had been beyond my high expectations.

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[1]The locals go mad for it more than us foreign tourists when it comes to the hanami.