Kyoto - Arashiyama

We woke up today with plans to take the Hozugawa River boat tour, but the consistent rain the last few days meant that the river was too high for the tour.

Instead, our first stop was Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple, which is home to 1,200 mossy, stone rakan. Each was carved by visitors under the guidance of Kocho Nishimura, a Buddhist stone sculptor and monk. It's a beautiful temple, and wandering slowly and seeing the unique rakan was a great start to the day.

We then started our walk down towards Arashiyama Park and Bamboo Forest, stopping at Adashino Nenbutsuji for our second bamboo grove.

We were very happy for the stop at Adashino once we made it to Arashiyama, since the much larger bamboo grove there was also much busier. We focused our time at the park on enjoying the side paths and taking in the views of the river, including several beautiful splashes of cherry blossoms on the other side.

We walked through Arashiyama's bamboo grove on our way to lunch and were able to grab a few moments away from the crowds to take in the scale of the bamboo surrounding us.

For lunch, we had our first wagyu beef experience overlooking a small zen garden. The beef was the best either of us has ever had and made a fantastic end to an active morning.Read more