Arashiyama Redux

An amusing day yesterday for Renee and me. We set out to take a sight-seeing train from Arashiyama to the outskirts of the outskirts of Kyoto. There was a nice little museum on Japanese trains at our departure station. It was a steam engine train that drove along the river's edge for about twenty km, and gave us a beautiful view of the valley. The announcements on the train were apparently hysterical -- everyone was laughing the entire ride -- but Renee and I were unfortunately in the dark.

The wonderful brochure advertised several beautiful flower gardens, historic neighborhoods, and local sake breweries around Kameoka, the final stop. Unfortunately, the final stop is only named Kameoka -- it's actually closer to Umahori, which is an hour's walk from Kameoka! We walked around Umahori for a little while and had lunch, but it was getting too hot and too late in the day to make the trek to Kameoka worthwhile.

Nevertheless, we will almost certainly come back. There are riverboat tours that take you
back down the river towards Kyoto. We saw them from the train on the way up -- large boats with about 40 people each are steered by a gondolier, basically, using a bamboo pole. This is noteworthy, because the river is not calm. Although you cannot really tell from the photo, it is quite choppy in places, and smaller groups were rafting it using much more modern equipment. They run year round, so Renee and I hope to go on cooler day at sometime.