Good early morning... how much I love to wake up early on holidays, just the opposite than in normal life :) This second day I decided to go to a few further places in the Kyoto area...
Started by going to Arashiyama and Sagano.... a complete contrast to Kyoto.. so so peaceful, maybe because it was early, I don't mind, but it was green and peaceful.
I started by the Tenryu-ji temple...with strong red and very tidy, simple and cute gardens :)
And the exit of this temple was the start of a very special road... the Bamboo Grove... a magical place, where the bamboo trees seem to reach the end of the sky and the early morning light coming through them made it magical and mystical.. together with the emptiness.... I did love to find this cute car... made me think of many possible stories for a movie or a book, jajajaj
After this I continued my magic visit in another of my dreamy places... the Gio-Ji temple... it doesn't really look like a temple... its like a garden with a tiny house where people go to pray... really, the green was just so green with the trees and the grass looking from another world... nature is just beautiful, I couldn't believe my eyes. This place was so peaceful, silent... really refreshing to be in a place like that.. I took a lot of time here....
And on the way to Okoshi-Sanso I spotted the first Bambi of the trip! He really scared me.. I was in my bubble and I heard this noise, I actually scared him.. cute animal :)
Okoshi-Sanso is a villa and garden where a famous samurai ovie actor used to live. They say it can be an inspiration for normal gardens... well, not sure I can ever make anything closer to that! This was once more, greeeeen, very green and beautiful!
They offered a very dense green tea, I liked it, and a sweet, also with green tea inside.. I am going to become green soon! :) jajaja
After enjoying Arashiyama I headed to Fushimi Inari-taisha.. I am sure you've seen pictures of this place somewhere... and it is like in the picture.. actually its more special than that... this is an easy hike up of 4 km a and it goes below a line of thousand red tori which made it so magical....
There are also lots of fox statues, this is because the fox is considered the messenger of Inari that is the god of the rise harvest and the temple below the mountain is dedicated to the God of rice and sake...
And the benefit of my super early start was that I had some more time.. so like that I said to myself, let's go and visit Himeji.... the most beautiful and famous castle of Japan... a few hours later, there I was :)
The castle I have to say, its really beautiful, white and shiny, to contrast with the red of the temples, good for the eye, jajajaj
I was not going to go inside as I am not the fan castle person, but the rain was coming, so why not! Its a big place with I think they were 7 floors but its all empty inside... so I would say, this place is much more beautiful from outside and If it wouldn't have been for the rain and my lack of umbrella, I would have loved to explore the gardens...
I headed back to Tokyo.. haa I broke my camera here.. can I be so stupid to just drop it to the floor? just like that? yes... I guess so, jajajaj so the first thing I did when I reached Kyoto was to get a new one... and after I went to Gion for dinner... no Geishas this time but I found a cool place where I had some veggies and fish into a soup... really good!
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