23.Chapter: Arashiyama or a Day Perfect from Start to Finish

Yesterday was a day filled from top to bottom and from front to back with very delightful moments in Arashiyama. I knew it would be very crowded, but since this western part of Kyoto is popular with tourists every day, I went anyway.

Early at nine, it was still relatively easy to move around on the streets, but the many traffic police officers who then had to spring into action were already preparing in several groups, moving metal roadblocks back and forth as if a massive demonstration or state visit were planned, feeling very important in their blue uniforms.

I intended to experience almost everything that Arashiyama has to offer and that interests me on this day, and first headed to the magnificent garden of the Tenryo Temple, yet another one of the countless UNESCO World Heritage sites, featuring a large pond surrounded by colorful trees, carefully placed stones and rocks, hills, and terraces, with the backdrop of the “borrowed landscape” or in Japanese “Shakkei,” a gardening technique in which the natural surroundings, here the high mountains of Arashiyama, are incorporated into the design to create an impression of greater depth, much like a painting. Since the autumn colors are at their peak now, this impression is particularly stunning. But this is a place I would also love to visit in spring (I can’t bring myself to say “would have visited…”), because in the garden there are countless, now already bare “weeping” plum and cherry trees with their long, earth-hanging branches. This time, I left the temple itself out.

Upon exiting the garden through the northern exit, you directly enter the famous bamboo grove that is depicted in every promotional brochure for Arashiyama. Did it have to be? Yes, it had to be; I absolutely wanted to see it again despite the mass migration in both directions. And I had to realize again: Well, it is indeed beautiful, but you can admire these bamboo forests in many places in Japan, and without the crowds, and it’s not that spectacular after all. Only here is a narrow path cut through the forest where everyone can take their wonderful, albeit always the same, photos (me too😁), and it is, of course, endlessly branded and promoted worldwide. In 5 minutes plus photo time, you’re through; been there, done that.

Next, I fulfilled a long-held dream. As I walked back to the river, it was speckled with countless small blue rowboats, in which couples sat paddling back and forth on the clear green water among the brown ducks, meaning in 99% of the cases the man was rowing. Gender roles seem to be quite rigid in Asia (the majority of the people who were out today on “Labor Day,” when apparently everyone goes rowing, were of Asian descent), but perhaps it wouldn’t be much different elsewhere. The funny thing is that many can’t row and try to force the boat with the wide side facing forward and desperately dipping the oars into the water again and again to steer it in the right direction, moving laboriously in the water. In between, boatmen paddled traditional covered houseboats across the river. And exactly one such boat was the object of my desire! The last time we were here, Johnny didn’t want to participate, perhaps finding it too touristy, but since then I have dreamed of such a boat tour.

You board the boat, receive a plastic bag pressed into your hand, and must take off your shoes and stow them away. Then you settle down comfortably on flat cushions placed on a red carpet on the floor, and the wonder begins. A ferryman with a long pole gently steers us approximately a kilometer across the beautiful little river between the colorful mountains, pushing the pole against the bottom, standing at the front of the boat, unlike in a Venetian gondola or the boats in Spreewald, skillfully navigating us through the rowboats and brown ducks, which he explains are migratory birds from Siberia that spend the winter here. The feeling is similar: no engine noise, everything is very quiet and poetic, only the sound of splashing water as he dips the pole into the water.

As we were already turning back, suddenly another uncovered boat came alongside and stopped. Delicious aromas wafted up, and the two women on board cooking octopus and sweet mochi on two grills provided us with a warm snack before hurriedly moving on to the next excursion boat. It felt like a dream or a scene from a movie: unreal feelings of happiness all around!

I would have loved to have gone again right away or switched to one of the boats that go further, providing the passengers with life vests and hosting a small white-water rafting adventure, but that will have to wait for another time; perhaps I can manage it in the last days.

Next, I wanted to stroll over the bridge, but now total chaos erupted here, the masses were being directed by many uniformed officers with megaphones, there was shoving and pushing, you were only allowed to cross the bridge on one side, left to right, then back right, you couldn’t stop, and were urged to walk slowly.

Finally landed on the opposite side, it was much more leisurely here; people were sitting comfortably on the shore with their picnic packs called bento, or eating at one of the many street food stalls offering their specialties. Finally, I also got to eat okonomiyaki, a kind of fried wonder made from pancake batter, layered with shredded cabbage, a handful of noodles, a raw egg, some vegetables, and more pancake batter, then this mountain is artfully flipped over on the hot plate and fried to perfection. Topped with umami sauce and mayonnaise in fine strips: delicious! Accompanied by a Coca-Cola, since there was nothing else. The bottles are green here!

But then there was another mountain that I absolutely had to climb again (I would never have dreamed that climbing mountains would become one of my favorite activities. Actually, I’m quite lazy and not athletic), this time it was the monkey rock of Arashiyama. A steep 20-minute climb, but this time well secured with railings at the cliffs and even with benches here and there to rest, you ascend to the monkeys, the Japan Macaques only found in Japan, with their red faces and bottoms. In the 1950s, a research station was established here to study the life and behavior of this species. It has since become a sort of zoo, but the animals roam freely. Many keepers are sprinting around everywhere, ensuring that people keep a sufficient distance, do not stare directly into the monkeys' eyes, which could be interpreted as aggression, and that one should neither touch nor aim the camera too obviously at the animals, or squat down or eat and drink on the mountain. If there are animal confrontations, which are noted by loud screeching, they are immediately on the scene to separate the monkeys. About 160 monkey individuals live here, lounging on the roof of the building where you can buy apple pieces and peanuts in their shells (always only in small portions to avoid overfeeding the animals) and offer them through a grating at the window, with humans in the cage and the animals outside, the macaques sometimes skillfully reaching with their hands through the bars. They hop through the trees, sometimes run right between visitors, or gaze meditatively down at the city below them.

I really wouldn’t want to encounter one of these animals in the woods or on the mountains, but being able to see and experience wild monkeys up close is already a great pleasure.

Just before it gets dark, the park closes, the tourists have dispersed in the meantime, some blue boats are still rocking on the river, and I find the highly praised Fu Fu No Yu Onsen on the shore, where there is a splendid outdoor pool with perfectly warm water overlooking the mountain, allowing one to gently drift off while recalling the many happy moments of the day.

Once again, I am deeply grateful for everything I am allowed to see and experience, and I end this beautiful day with a beer at Yamatoya, sweet jazz melodies playing in my ears.