The weekend before JLPT exams, we went to Kyoto. I wanted to write about this earlier. But cdn’t manage to extract some time for blogging.
Kyoto is the old capital of Japan and a city of immense historic significance. We set off from Sanda at 8.30 AM. Our first destination was Arashiyama - a district in the outskirts of Kyoto. We went to a park which is a borrowed scenery with mountains in the backdrop. They charge us an entry fee of 500 yen. We were a bit hesitant at first. Is it worth spending 500 yen for a walk around the park? But as soon as we entered the compound, we realized that the place was worth the price we paid. We witnessed autumn at its best !!
Next was TenRyu-Ji - Temple of the heavenly dragon. This zen temple is listed in the World heritage list as a historic monument of ancient Kyoto. The rock garden is pretty famous though we failed to decipher the meanings which the beautifully shaped/piled stones were conveying ;)
Autumn was in full swing. The trees had put on a beautiful show dressed in the wonderful display of colors. You tell any color and there were leaves with colors of that shade. Yellow, light red, bright red, dark red, orange, maroon, dark magenta, different shades of green and even there was a tree with purple leaves. The flushy green bamboo forest was strangely beautiful after the walk through the red garden.
From there we took the Sagano Romantic train to Kyoto. Our next point of interest was Golden Temple (Kinka Ku-ji).
If the sights in the daytime could be described as wonderful, the night view would make us go crazy. We visited
Clear water temple (kiyomisudera) at night. It looked as if the trees were flaming. The leaves were the colors of burning amber. There was forest on one side. With the lighting on the yellow leaves, they were gleaming like gold. The night view of Kyoto from this height was really amazing.
In my childhood days, I have heard of and seen snaps of places where leaves are not only green. But since we don’t have autumn and this kind of beauty in India, honesty I never fully believed that such places existed. It was like a dream to me. I was just thrilled with the mere sight of the multi colored trees and the amazing temples. It was one of the most vibrant and memorable days in my life.
