Grabbed our bags from our Ecbo Cloak hair salon, then hurried to catch a bus to Arashiyama. About a half hour ride North West of Kyoto, Arashiyama has some really pretty tourist spots.
The bus ride was hecka uncomfortable with our bags. The seats were cramped and the bus got quite crowded. I was super relieved once we were able to disembark. We were staying at Suiran, a beautiful SPG property right next to the river. Decided to use my one free night so we could have an outdoor hotspring, and experience a luxury mix of hotel/ryokan. Super expensive place, not sure we would be able to stay there otherwise >.<' Credit card perks have really helped us out on our travels in Asia!
It was about 4:30pm once we were checked in, so we decided to go see the Bamboo Forest (even though we were told the best time to see it was early morning). We had a flight to catch the next day and needed to leave by 8am, so we didn't think we would be able to experience it early morning.
Our hotel was right next to Tenryuji Temple, so we chose a path through the temple grounds to walk to the Bamboo Forest.
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| Temple Grounds on our way to the Bamboo Forest |
We started into the forest right as the sun was starting to go down. So, instead of early morning sunrise, we got to experience an ethereal twilight.
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| Path into the Bamboo Forest |
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| Bamboo starting to get thicker the farther we went down the path |
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| Twilight starting to descend. The colors and feeling of being enveloped by towering bamboo was super cool |
I wish I was better with the manual function on my camera, I had trouble being able to change my settings to match the changing light.
The sun had basically set as we made our way outside of the forest. We were alone, wandering around a residential area, just enjoying the quiet and meandering along in the vague direction of our hotel.
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| Kitsune's phone captured a better picture I think! |
Our Boruta reservation as at 8:30pm (their last seating) so we slowly made our way back to our hotel to change for dinner.
