The Arashiyama Bamboo Grove led us to an intersection that allowed us to head in different directions. Head North and you can see some of the larger temple areas. Head South and walk along the river towards a famous bridge and potentially a monkey park. We opted instead to go up the nearby hill, which led us to a place called "Okouchi Sansou."
After exploring the beautiful and peaceful gardens of Okouchi Sansou, slept and made our trip the next day to the famous Kiyomizu-dera temple. It is here where we decided to have a little fun and dress up in kimonos. I have to say that I was not used to walking around in wooden sandals and a heavy gown but it was surprisingly comfortable despite walking up and down the hilly area of Kiyomizu-dera.
We later visited the area of Nara, which is a city a good distance away from Kyoto. It is here that deer roam freely in some of the parks and are quite tame... right up until they realize you have food or food-like objects on you.
At this point in the trip, I was starting to run out of film and decided to conserve my shots. With just a few frames left on a roll of black and white film, I took photographs of the Fushimi-Inari Shrine at night (we arrived quite late and were literally poking around in the haunting darkness) and finished the roll with just a few frames left in the geisha area known as Gion in Kyoto.
A section of Okouchi-Sanso
Okouchi-sanso
Okouchi-sanso
Okouchi-sanso
Okouchi-sanso
Okouchi-sanso
The fences in the bamboo grove are made of... bamboo!
Arashiyama, Kyoto
Rental Kimono Okamoto in Kiyomizu-dera
Rental Kimono Okamoto in Kiyomizu-dera
:)
Children school groups were everywhere in Kiyomizu-dera.
Kiyomizu-dera temple
Deer of Nara
With onlookers like myself looking on, two guys from a shop in Nara pound and create delicious mochi the old-fashioned way.
The Fushimi Inari shrine area has a hike that goes for about two hours through these torii style gates. As we arrived very late, it started to get very dark very quickly. Before we knew it, we were enveloped in darkness going through a trail in Japan in almost absolute quiet. After we noticed it starting to elevate and we found ourselves stumbling in the dark, we decided to turn around and call it a day.
This last images was actually my absolute last frame of film on me. Serendipitously, we ran into a group of maiko (or people dressed up as maiko) and I asked if they were OK with my taking their photo. They were cool with it and I took the photo and that was it... my film was done!