arashiyama, kyoto

wow thanks for the compliments on the boots! haha. *beams* i'm glad u all think it's nice.. i got it cheaper than i was prepared to pay too, which is great :)

anyhow, here are some pictures of arashiyama, one of more famous - among the many famous - spots in kyoto. it's a beautiful place, but the station at which we arrived is in a slightly sad looking state, especially at night:

but anyhow, check out the mist in arashiyama:

autumn foliage:

along the arashiyama river, where it's super cold

on the train towards arashiyama, we spotted some really old looking high school students. we were staring at them for sometime, wondering if there were really students or people in cosplay. the latter seemed rather far fetched, which made us really doubt the possibility of that, till we saw the guy on the left in the picture below holding up his handphone.

he's some OLD guy, so that leaves no question as to who they actually are NOT. we have no idea what they're doing though.. they were walking in front of us over the bridge and across the river, but stopped by the river to enjoy the view and take a group shot. here they are waiting for the camera and tripod to be set up:

rickshaw pullers waiting on the other side of the river. they always approach passersby asking them if they want a ride, but for some reason not a single one of the several rickshaw pullers approached us. maybe we arent chio enough. haha.

nice entrance to this restaurant that had an open-to-all garden

check out the really huge lotus leaves!

there are quite a few persimmon trees around, and i LOVE seeing all the ripe, round, orange persimmons hanging from the trees. it's so autumny and so beautiful! i hate persimmons, but i really love the way they look on the branch.

cute!

interesting!

there was this place that had statues of all (i think) the many 罗汉. there were far more than 18..

another image of guanyin

the gorgeous grounds within the 天龍寺:

the adjacent bamboo forest, which lonely planet describes as similar to the one in crouching tiger hidden dragon (sidenote: i explain at every opportunity how i think CTHD is a crap example of chinese wuxia films, and that day was no exception!)

we then visited Okochi Sanso, which is described by LP as the most beautiful house in Kyoto. it's the former residence of this guy who was a big movie star, and wow. the place is just so gorgeous! the views were amazing, the walk through the gardens was superb and the best thing was that for most of the walk, we were the only two people around! to think we almost missed it cos we were going to choose going down the slope rather than up..

i love it when places have these kind of stepping-stone paths

we were walking along charming stone paths like these for most of the time we were in that house. beautiful beautiful beautiful!

and just look at the colours and foliage

this is my favourite stone path of all: