Arashiyama and Togetsukyo Bridge

Day Two of Kyoto:

No links this time, I promise. I'll explain stuff properly, and we'll all be on the same page. Literally. Same webpage, that is. Yeah.

Here's the thing: Kyoto is a lot smaller than Tokyo. The great metropolitan area of Japan's capital has 35 million people, making it the largest city in the world. Kyoto has a mere 1.5 million. That's still a respectable number, mind. It makes Kyoto about as big, population-wise, as Philadelphia or Vienna.

But it's an old city. Ancient. It was the capital of Japan—just the capital, mind—for a thousand years. Whereas Tokyo was built on the swampy delta of the Sumida River, Kyoto is nestled into a valley east of the mountainous Tamba highlands, right smack dab in the middle of Honshu. Green hills surround it. It seems somehow cut off from the rest of the island. It's got its own vibe. Somehow it felt even more laid-back than Busan. Again, I got the sense that the Japanese were a lot more secure, more relaxed, more genuine in their habits and mannerisms. Compared to Japan, everybody in Korea seems to have an ax to grind and a chip on their shoulder. The people in Kyoto just are. Things happen at their own pace here, and if they don't, nobody gives a flip. The city seems simultaneously proud of its status as the former capital and glad to be well shut of the business.

Nowhere is this more apparent than Arashiyama, a neighborhood on the western outskirts of Kyoto. The district is named for the mountain that broods over it from across the river. Upon the slopes of this mountain, and at its feet, were some uniquely Kyoto-ish things that I've wanted to do for ages.

But we'll get to that later. Getting to Arashiyama turned out to be almost as fun and whimsical as the place itself.

I had three options. Well, four, if you count taxicabs. But I avoided taking cabs as much as I could in Japan, since it was seven hundred yen (about $7) to drop a flag in Tokyo, and about $6.40 everywhere else I went. So I decided that it would be trains. There were three lines to choose from:

From japan-guide.com

The JR Sagano line would have necessitated going down to Kyoto Station. The Keifuku Arashiyama Line didn't stop anywhere near Shijo Station (the one nearest my hotel in the center of town). However, by taking the Hankyu Katsura Line west from Shijo Station and then switching to the Hankyu Arashiyama Line, I could get myself to that little stop at the bottom of the map above, south of the Katsura River.

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: You might notice that the river in the map above has two names. I was mighty confused about that for a while. Wikipedia labels the river the Ōi, while this map says it's the Katsura River below the Togetsukyo Bridge and the Hozu River above it. As near as I can figure out, the Hozu River is the one flowing along the valley between the mountains, while the Ōi trickles out of those mountains to join the Hozu and flow beneath Togetsukyo. After that, the two rivers combined become the Katsura. Sort of like the Power Rangers, if there were only two Rangers and they were both wet and green and full of duck poop. All clear now?)

I got on the Hankyu Katsura Line at Shijo Station a hop, skip and a jump from the Karasuma Kyoto Hotel. The train was spacious and clean and very comfortable, and the morning bright and promising.

Kyoto's Hankyu subway service has got its act together.

I rode a few stops to Katsura Station and then switched to this charming little tram going toward Arashiyama.

 

Then all I had to do was sit back and watch western Kyoto, with its tile-roofed houses and tiny backyards, roll by my window:

I didn't even realize that there was a torii (sacred Shinto gate) in this picture until I looked at it later in playback mode on the my camera's pop-out screen. Talk about serendipity!

Don't that beat all? I was starting to like Kyoto. Quaint's the word, but without the creeping weirdness that the term implies. Just sort of old-fashioned and slow and enchanting, you know?

So, the Hankyu Arashiyama Line terminated at (you guessed it) Arashiyama Station, just south of the Katsura River, and all of us schmucks who were going to Arashiyama and its environs disembarked.

I love trains. And somehow they look even cooler with Japanese or Chinese characters on them.

The view after exiting the station.

The view looking back at the station.

After a couple of minutes walking along narrow one-lane roads...

...I found myself on the shores of the Katsura River!

I immediately set about taking a panoramic shot, of which the previous three photos are the first 75%. Then I looked to my left and...lo and behold! It was the Togetsukyo ("Moon-Crossing") Bridge!

Arashiyama proper was just across the river.

Arashiyama, by the way, means "Storm Mountain." The Japanese have such awesome names for things. Yes, I mean "awesome" literally, Louis C.K.

That's the same bridge that I've seen so many anime characters walk/run across. Creepy.

This gentleman was net-fishing. Didn't even have a reel on his pole. He just hauled back and skillfully sent the fish winging right into the net in his left hand.

So now that I'm taking pictures of the river west of the bridge, it's the Hozu, not the Katsura. Don't you forget it.

Just lovely, isn't it? The water, the reeds, the town, the hills, and the clouds and mist in the background. Dang, I'm good. (Either that or my Canon T3i does all the work for me.) Looking back, I think it was Arashiyama, and particularly this scene, that made me really, really start to like Japan.

Undaunted by the blasting heat, the cloying damp, or the thundering entomological chorus, I walked down along the riverbank, snapping picture after picture, trying to get the bridge from all angles, feeling like some East Asian version of Clint Eastwood in The Bridges of Madison County.

And then, abruptly, I was on the bridge itself. To my left was a tributary of the river, and a little dock with small pleasure boats moored alongside...

...plus souvenir shops and cafes and tea houses, and a rickshaw stop.

No, seriously! Rickshaws, dude! Ferrying people across the Moon-Crossing Bridge and into the low-slung bosom of Arashiyama beyond! No taxicabs here, this is Kyoto!

But I wasn't going across the bridge just yet. My destination was left, right and then left: straight up Storm Mountain.

Tomorrow: IWATAYAMA MONKEY PARK. I feed a macaque. No joke. There's video.

Stay tuned...