I walked down the side of the river. I have to make a conscious effort to avoid all the delicious tourist foods people sell on the side of the road. They aren't particularly overpriced, but I don't want to survive on ice cream and deep-fried croquets.
I wandered all over Arashiyama looking for this facade. It took many hours. Eventually I reached the place that my tour guide, a random Japanese photoblogger who did not really document his trip, had found on his walk.
I still couldn't find the facade, though. I walked around a large residential zone, peering down every street. I bought souvenirs on a side road. Finally I discovered it on the main road that I had avoided, 50 meters from a Buddhist temple.
Ladies and gentlemen... the Siddhartha Gautama Natural Law Society, Japan!
This facade did not reveal any clues, and when I looked behind it, there were only bamboo trees. I walked across the road to an old lady's shop and asked her about it. She said something about 15 years, 10 years, and 5 years ago. I assume she was using words like "closed", "abandoned" and "demolished", none of which I knew. Well... mission accomplished, right? Now I just need to find the station!
Oh no! How did I end up here?
I wound up walking far past the station on a country road going into Kyoto. I had to turn around and walk back. Durr.
A bug I saw on the road.
Today I biked around northern Kyoto near the university.
The placement of this gate seems like a very accurate summary of Japanese religion to me. It's quite a pretty arrangement, too. It looks like the path is going right into the mountain.
This is another gate. This gate belongs to an old shrine in northern Kyoto. There was a wedding being held there. Their literature claims that they were founded in AD 5. I don't know what I think about that. Brian-sensei is always criticizing Shinto for being a bunch of jingoistic emperor worshippers. Certainly this is a very bold thing for a shrine to claim. I liked the miko though.
I ate at a vegan restaurant named Sunny Place. This is a photo of another vegan restaurant entirely. Sunny Place was very much a woman's kitchen, and you sat at a kitchen counter and watched her make your food. I felt awkward not knowing very much Japanese.
I watched two movies this weekend: Modern Times and Princess Mononoke. I had a good time.
