Japanese couple in the Katsura River
Arashiyama – Kyoto, Japan
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Posts tagged kyoto
Traditional Japanese shopping streets
Shopping street in Kyoto, Japan – Demachi Masugata Shotengai (出町桝形商店街)
Soon after I took this previously published photo, rain began to fall quite heavily so I headed for refuge in the nearby covered shopping street. I purchased a chuhai and sat on a bench at the end of the street to wait out the storm. That’s when I took today’s photo.
A French man with a dog in his bike basket came down the street and stopped. He was surprised to see another foreigner in this part of town. We started talking in English, but I had difficulty understanding him and he me. So when I figured out that he had lived in Japan for 15+ years I asked him in Japanese if he would prefer to speak in Japanese. He was thrilled since his Japanese was much better than his English. We had a long chat until the rain slowed down, and then we both got on our bikes and headed in opposite directions. The best part of our conversation was seeing the looks on people’s faces as they passed. They were either stunned or smiling to see two white men speaking to each other in Japanese.
Nijo Castle (二条城) under a humid sky
Nijo Castle (二条城) – Kyoto, Japan
Ryoanji (龍安寺)
Ryōan-ji (龍安寺) – Kyoto, Japan
There is something unzenlike in a place like this when it is crowded with tourists, especially talking tourists. That said, I had always been underwhelmed by photos of Ryoanji, but I found actually being there to be quite amazing. Maybe it was just because it was humid, a million degrees, and one can view the rock garden from the shade. In any event, photos don’t do it justice, but try to get there when you can be alone (like I was able to at Ninnaji) if you can for best results.
Ninnaji’s South Garden (仁和寺の南庭) panorama
Photomerge of Ninna-ji’s South Garden
Kyoto, Japan
When I lived in Japan in the 1980s I didn’t get the chance to travel outside of the Tokyo and Yamanashi area. I purchased a set of postcards at the time and looked at them often. Probably half or more were from Kyoto. The only two scenes in these twenty or so postcards that I actually saw in person in the 1980s were Mt. Fuji and a Shinkansen.
Fast forward 25 years, and I was riding a bike through Kyoto stopping at any place that looked interesting without any prior research. I ended up at the entrance gate for Ninnaji and payed 500 yen. After walking around the grounds I felt a bit ripped off. Just before leaving I saw someone hand their admission ticket to a man and enter a building so I followed suit. Moments later I realized that my 500 yen was well spent. This was one of the scenes from one of those postcards I had looked at so fondly decades before! Not only that, but the place was mostly empty. Occasionally another person would wander in and gasp at the beauty of the South Garden (dantei) before heading back out, but for the most part this was my garden to meditate in by myself.
Japanese photographer and the bamboo path
Kyoto’s bamboo path as captured by a Japanese photographer
After taking this photo the Japanese man featured here turned around and apologized for ruining my photo with his presence. I told him not to worry, that I was taking his photo in the scene as I already had a photo of the scene without any people. He smiled.