Yesterday, bright and early, we visited the famous bamboo grove at Arashiyama. Twenty minutes (by train) west of Kyoto, this is a spot famous worldwide for the beauty of its bamboo.
The bamboo lines a path towards temples, and is much shorter than you may expect, with only a few photo-worthy stretches.
We went early since it becomes mobbed with tourists during the day, and photo ops become impossible. The drawback was that it was very cold – too cold for the clothing we have with us – and even the fog on my glasses stated to freeze!
As you can see the bamboo was extremely pretty! It was massively tall and I was puzzled by the lack of any immature sprouts. How often does this die and how does it renew itself? There was no information about this.
A beautiful location worth the visit. There’s lots of shops and eateries nearby, and even a monkey park, but we were there before any of it opened so did not visit.
Afterwards we did our laundry at a tiny laundromat before partaking in more shopping at a giant mall. While there we couldn’t resist this fukubukuro:
There was no hint as to the contents, but it was big and (only?) ¥3600 and sold from a shop that sold many curious and interesting/weird items so we took the gamble. And inside was…
Meat! Specifically a large meat-patterned pillow and towel, chopsticks, a sponge and an electric grill (which wouldn’t work in the US)!! What will we do with any of this?!? I’m sure I’ll think of something 🙂
that meat pillow is creepy