Daimaru: Kyoto department store
A. and I went to Daimaru to do our New Year's food shopping. This task was made a little more difficult due to an incredible snowfall:
Famous Moon-crossing bridge, and a very beautiful tree!
Arashiyama is the North-Western side of Kyoto and is home to the famous Tenyu-ji temple which has an incredible bamboo forest and a beautiful Sogen garden. While touring the garden, we realized that we were in danger! The snow was melting quickly off the rooftops of the
temples, and coming down in large chunks. P. and I were quite entertained watching people, young and old, jumping back in surprise when snow came crashing down! We then approached the spectacle because P. wanted to try out the quick-snapping feature of her camera, and I nearly got attacked myself! Ah... the joys of snow! (and I was nervous that I wouldn't get a real winter...)
Uji: Just outside Kyoto
Byodin is the temple illustrated on the Japanese 10円 coin. Dad and I went to Uji by train, using one of the many private train lines that service Kyoto and the surrounding area. I had my first education in this system: there are local, semi-express, express, limited express, rapid express, and limited rapid express trains. All these trains use the same track and so you have to be well versed in reading and understanding the information board. These boards show which train is arriving, and which train will arrive after that, times of departure and destinations... To make things even more complicated, not all trains go to the same place! Luckily my dad knows the system well and we got to Uji without any problems. We went to see Byodin and go inside the temple to see a large bronze Buddha statue. We then went for a walk down Uji river, as my dad wanted to cross the river at a dam that he had heard about... when we finally arrived at the dam we realized that crossing it wasn't going to be an option:
luckily, there was a little bridge for us to use instead!
Uji river
Great pics love! Looking forward to seeing more of 'em.
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