Now I can talk about today, and this is probably dated tomorrow by now, because the internet connection is acting up and I just finished writing about yesterday and it took me all this time. Mmm, time.

Today I got up and decided to go for a quick random walk before doing some studying or something. But it was such a nice day that I kept on walking, as I do, until I reached a mysterious bamboo forest. I didn't really know where I was, I knew that I'd been heading in Arashiyama direction, but I was under the impression that it was miles away. But that's where I was, ish.



So, I explored the forest a bit, before meeting an old man on the road selling postcards. I have been searching everywhere for postcards, so I was quite happy. He explained to me that he'd painted them himself, of the surrounding area. Oh, I wanted to buy them all. I should have bought two of each because now I don't want to send them away to people. Some of them are very much like the backgrounds of Kay Nielsen's colour pieces, fairy-tale ish, but the area is still completely recognisable. I'm going back to find him again.



Around the corner I came across a small shrine, the Nonomiya-Jinja. After spending a while there, I headed further along the bamboo path. I saw some interesting trees and buildings, and eventually I hit gold; the North entrance to Tenryu-ji, a big temple. I'd had no idea that it was there or even existed, but I decided to go in and see the gardens.

(As always, remember to click for bigger!)























So beautiful, those are about one tenth of all the pictures I took. After extensively viewing the gardens, I decided to head into the actual main temple building itself, as this and some of the walkways were also open to visitors.











But don't forget... Kyoto City is still in the background.

I think I spent about two hours at that temple, as away from the main part there were more gardens and small buildings, and by the time I'd seen them all it was about to get dark. Luckily I found a cute little street near the exit gate, and Arashiyama Station was just across the road.







The Arashiyama Monkey Park is nearby!

I got a tram back, as it had taken me an hour and a half to walk there, but then I hadn't planned it. And now I'm going to sleep! Tomorrow I'm up early for Jidai Matsuri with Emily, so expect more photos (sorry if anyone's on dial-up) tomorrow! Goodnight!