Arashiyama: Neurosis in a Zen Paradise

schmoo · January 14, 2008

It is with a heavy heart I share my last set of photos from my trip to Japan last November. While I was there I felt disgruntled and confused but each passing day I find myself missing it and the weird cultural foibles more and more.

I put off going through our day trip to the bamboo groves and shrines of Arashiyama because once they're done, I'm done.

We took the Kyoto rail line out towards Sagano, completely confused as to whether or not this was the right direction. By this time we were intimately familiar with the JR lines of Tokyo but the older, more traditional commuter trains found in the old capital were a bit different, and the frequency of English speakers was exponentially lower.

I remember the first afternoon we'd arrived, all of our suitcases gathered like orphaned children around us as we stared at the eccentric subway map and faced an evil wall of ticket machines that displayed no English. Any person we asked for help looked at us sadly, confused, and shook their heads. I started to panic: tired, frustrated, and never knowing if we were going to be able to find our hotel, I was getting ready to just give up and camp out in a corner.

We went from ticket booth to ticket booth, sometimes going our separate ways in a desperate attempt to locate a sign that could tell us where to go and how to get there. Finally, just before my husband was about to jump the turnstiles to go back out of the station, a diminutive middle-aged man who'd been standing there watching us flounder the whole time asked us in perfect English: "Where do you need to go?"

Gee. Thanks, bub!!!!

Anyway, going to Sagano-Arashiyama was a day trip I anticipated greatly. We had no set plans for our 3 days in Kyoto, but as I checked into Dgrin on our first night on my laptop, someone had suggested the bamboo groves west of the city. So after a bit of Googling and fiddling with maps, we had a plan.

Waiting for....?

The mountains around Kyoto are not tall by most standards, but they are old and beautiful. In November all kinds of tourists head to these mountains in the hopes of seeing the famous scarlet-red maple leaves. It was still a little early for them. The most red we found was in the many gift shops that capitalized on the tourism pouring in for the season. Cell phone charms, paper fans, cards, statuary, teapots, chopsticks... everything was painted or printed with the maples leaves and enlivened the beautiful little town.

Dogs in a residential street on the walking path to the groves

We walked through the bamboo groves, stopping at several shrines and cemeteries on the way. I was never sure if photos were allowed in the shrines so I erred on he side of caution. They were crowded. The cemeteries were not.

Sign on the gate, don't know what it says

In the cemetery

Four by Two

Hoverflies

The bamboo is ancient and thick and their huge trunks absorb the sound of wondrous voices. You can't see them unless you think to look, but thousands and thousands of large spiders hover in the air between them, vying for flies and other flying insects. (birds?) When the groves cleared out and gave way to small restaurants and other residential houses, my skin was itching and my jaw hurt from trying not to scream! I hate spiders. I hate them more when I know they're crawling by the dozens in the air above me.

Abstract

Straight Looking Round

Oh how long I waited for the path to clear

Every time I'm traveling in a foreign country I am actually struck by the percentage of native tourists. I don't know why it's so odd to me, that for example a resident of Germany would go to visit a tiny town like Grainau for a spa vacation. Just because they are the same nationality, such sights aren't quite as interesting? In that way I am a hypocrite, because the mountains of Montana and the waves of San Francisco certainly draw me. :lol3

Well-dressed

Arashiyama and the surrounding areas are so beautiful, despite the flood of tourists that make their journey there to see pieces of the old, natural country. The gift shops are quaint and busy, and the sweet faces of the Japanese always assure you that you need to buy a hundred reminders of your trip to this little corner of the world.

But I can do without the spiders.

swintonphoto · January 14, 2008

Really lovely images. Thank you for the commentary as well - it adds so much richness to the images. Sounds like a memorable journey.

Giphsub · January 15, 2008

Great set Schmoo!

The bamboo groves, and man-eating spiders are great aren't they! The shrines and temples are fine for photography. They don't care! The sign on the gate to the cemetary says "No entry, except for people visiting family graves. People here to visit family graves, please contact the temple."

Too bad you have no more photos! :cry

Those dogs are a crack up aren't they! No length of time here makes me stop laughing at how stupidly they dress them up.

gluwater · January 15, 2008

No pictures of the massive spiders? I'm glad you waited for the path to clear. That's an interesting fence along the path of the bamboo, how large was the bamboo grove? I know you're camera shy but do you and Trav do the touristy shots of yourselves? I'm never in any of my shots and sometimes I wish I was.

leaforte · January 15, 2008

I would so love to have taken that trip! My faves are 'waitng for...?' and 'abstract'. Growing bamboo has become quite a hobby for some, and a money crop for others, here in the nothwest. Seems they (bamboo) love our climate.

Chrissiebeez_NL · January 15, 2008

great texture in the first ones and great eye all around!

love your compositions, especially in the first four, which were my fav.

explorish · January 15, 2008

beautiful.

ian408 · January 15, 2008

Wow. It's amazing to find places like the bamboo in the middle of what seems
to be a very busy place.

schmoo · January 15, 2008

Thanks, guys

I don't think it's possible to get used to all those spiders, is it Mike? The sick part of me wonders how big they can actually get. Of course I didn't process any photos of them but I have somewhere a snapshot of the sky that, when zoomed in, there were at least 12 spiders hanging in there. Yechh.

I never take photos of myself, Nick! I don't have any of me from this trip, no, although every now and then we'll snap something silly, like this shot from when we were stranded in the Denver airport, pre-Glacier. I never think to do things like that until after I get home, heh. But I know what you mean.

schmoo · January 15, 2008

ian408 wrote:

Wow. It's amazing to find places like the bamboo in the middle of what seems
to be a very busy place.

Bamboo + fisheye =

thumb

Your 8mm Sigma arrived yet? That's what I was using and it'd be much more impressive on a FF.

Awais Yaqub · January 15, 2008

Schmoo how to say "Great photography" in japanies ?

Art Scott · January 15, 2008

schmoo wrote:

Every time I'm traveling in a foreign country I am actually struck by the percentage of native tourists. I don't know why it's so odd to me, that for example a resident of Germany would go to visit a tiny town like Grainau for a spa vacation. Just because they are the same nationality, such sights aren't quite as interesting? In that way I am a hypocrite, because the mountains of Montana and the waves of San Francisco certainly draw me.

I am so fascinated by your pics of Kyoto, they are really wonderful.....well all of your pics of Japan and everywhere else is FANTASTIC.....Being a Reiki Master and having read about how Mikao Usui got the enlightenment that became Reiki on Mt Kuriyama....these pics have really made want to visit Japan and especially the Monastery on Mt Kuriyama outside of Kyoto...

Thank YOu for sharing

I try (now) to think of each state as a different country (sort of).....we as americans (most americans) never really take the time to see our country and I also noticed that when I traveled around the Czech Republic that the amount of Czech tourist really amazed me and tht is a realtivaly small country.....however one thing that keeps americans from sightseeing in our own country is the transportation system that is so poor for this.....it is afact that only a vry rew cities have a decent transportation system but traveling in the country side is out unless you actually ahve a lot of stock in the oil industry:D

Giphsub · January 15, 2008

Well Schmoo, I'm from Aus, so I actually grew up with even bigger spiders and other crawlies! So they really don't bother me

Here are some of those spiders for ya!

schmoo · January 16, 2008

:yikes

Thanks Mike! At least in photos you can't see them moving. Oy vey. Spiders are awesome, but keep them away from me, thanks. I would love to go to Oz sometime but the spiders really are up on the list of things that have me putting that off.

I think Gus posted a shot of one that was bigger than his hand, crawling on his ceiling? Yecch.

schmoo · January 16, 2008

Thanks Art, Awais! I do think that a lot of us take our homelands for granted. I know I certainly did up until I started attending workshops and shootouts

Giphsub · January 16, 2008

Hehe, yeah, we had a resident huntsman spider living in our house. He was bigger than your hand and would appear in the hallway on the walls or ceiling periodically. We nicknamed him Harry, even though Harry couldn't possibly have lived as long as he did! Even now, if one appears when I am home visiting, we all say, "Harry's back!"

Arashiyama: Neurosis in a Zen Paradise

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