Arashiyama

We spent last Thursday in the Western "suburbs" of Arashiyama, a district known as a summer retreat from the heat of downtown Kyoto. On our day in the 'burbs, we rode the Sagano Romantic Train, a narrow guage open-air train which twists through the canyons of the Hozugawa. I think "Romantic" refers to the fact that it's from an earlier era. We enjoyed great views of the mountains and whitewater of the Hozu, and saw several boats shooting the rapids. Notably, the boats were wooden (though we did see some rafts), navigated by men with long poles, and no one was wearing a life jacket. This seemed ill advised--the rapids really were quite formidable!

After our train ride, we strolled in the garden of Tenryuji Temple. The baby found this to be a peaceful place for a nap, at which time the garden became even more peaceful for the adults. This garden goes all the way back to the 1300s, and features a pond with a rock arrangement evoking a mountainous island, and utilizes the Arashiyama mountains as a backdrop. We also like it because it has pleasant trails leading around the perimeter of a bamboo forest with views all the way to Hieizan and the Eastern mountains.

In town, we stopped at a restaurant that specializes in tofu for dinner. J got to eat tofu and kabocha (pumpkin) for supper, which he seemed to like. It's a little complicated eating traditional Japanese food while holding a squirmy baby (as you can imagine from the photo below), but it was worth the effort.

We concluded our day in Arashiyama by watching cormorant fishing, a summer tradition in the many rivers around Kyoto. Men in flat wooden boats use trained cormorants (on leashes!) to catch fish. The cormorants have rings around their necks to prevent swallowing the fish (which doesn't sound very humane to me), though they apparently get to share some of it, which explains their great enthusiasm for diving for fish. The most interesting part of this was the fact that the lead cormorant handlers wore grass skirts and stood next to giant torches. This seems almost as dangerous as shooting the Hozu rapids in a wooden boat!

True to its history as a place to beat the heat, Arashiyama was quite comfortable. While the city has been pretty hot these last few weeks, the surrounding mountains have provided refreshing breezes and shady hikes.