[Japan] Exploring Arashiyama , a quite yet beautiful neighbourhood in Kyoto

Three times I've been to Japan, but I never get bored with this country. Delicious food, beautiful sights, and also the scenery that always looks amazing in every season. I have visited some cities in Japan, but there's 1 city has stole my heart, it's Kyoto. My first visit to Kyoto was in winter 2015, and it's just as a daytrip from Osaka. At that time I chose to stay longer at bigger city such as Osaka and Tokyo, because I thought big city is more interesting. But I was wrong. Kyoto is a very beautiful city, and 1 day obviously not enough to explore this city.

Travel with kids at Arashiyama, Kyoto

First time I read about Kyoto, I thought it's just a "boring" city with many temples to be visited. Until I was arrived in Kyoto, I realized why peoples love Kyoto and always said that Kyoto is the most beautiful city in Japan. Kyoto has an unique ambience. Even though there were many peoples at some tourist spots, but somehow I still felt it's not as crowded as other tourist places. When I was exploring Kyoto, it always feel calm, especially at Arashiyama.

Scenic bridge at Katsura river, Arashiyama

Arashiyama is a famous neighbourhood in Kyoto. This area has a popular attraction and it's a mandatory to visit this place when in Kyoto. That attraction called Sagano Bamboo Forest. Beside a bamboo forest, another reasons that make people love this place is because of its quite ambience, that really hard to get in big city life. For those reasons, Arashiyama become my favorite place in Japan, and I won't miss this place every time I visit Kyoto. Two times I visited Kyoto, two times I explored Arashiyama. At this post, I'll write about whole experiences when I was exploring this beautiful area, both in winter and spring.

How to go to Arashiyama?
Before I write more about this trip, let me explain about how to go to Arashiyama. Even though Arashiyama located at Kyoto, but it's very easy to go to this place from Osaka. All you need is just take a train Hankyu Line (¥400) from Umeda Station (Osaka Station). With 1 transfer (at Katsura Station), you'll arrived at Arashiyama Station in 1 hour.

If you depart from Kyoto city centre, you can take Hankyu Line (¥220) as well from Kawaramachi Station, and it only takes 20 minutes to reach Arashiyama station. However, there's another option to do this trip. Besides train, you also can take randen (tram) which brought you from Shijo Omiya station to Arashiyama station without transfer. It has the same fare with train. However, randen is slower and it also has a very small space which quite uncomfortable especially if you're traveling with baby (and stroller).

Other thing that you have to note is randen and train has different stops in Arashiyama. They both have the same name (Arashiyama station), but they're located at different place. Arashiyama station for randen located closer with bamboo forest, while the station for train located at the other side of Katsura river and you need to walk around 1km to reach bamboo forest. However, this walking "trip" was really enjoyable. To be honest, I prefer to take a train and walk for 1km because the ambience and the view was really amazing. Crossing Katsura river by the bridge and enjoy the scenery of river and mountain, you only can get this in Arashiyama.

Best things to do in Arashiyama : sit and enjoy the scenery

Winter 2015
As I told you before, at this time I was visiting Kyoto as a daytrip from Osaka. Since Arashiyama located further than other attractions that we wanted to visit, so we chose Arashiyama as the first destination. We departed at 6AM from Osaka by train, and arrived at 7AM at Arashiyama station. First impression when I stepped outside from the train, was this place really quite. I even didn't see other peoples at the train, it's just my group. Maybe it's too early for other peoples, but that's a good thing for us. Finally we could walk without bumped with other peoples. However, this situation made us felt colder. It was 8 degrees Celcius, and my hands both were freezing. Luckily I wore a very warm - furry winter jacket from H&M. It was a special collection from H&M A/W Studio 2015, and it was perfectly cover my body from a very cold wind.

Autumn leaves at the end of December at Arashiyama, Kyoto 

We started to walk by following the path, and I was really enjoy this place. It was at the end of December, but I still could spot some autumn leaves. It was really beautiful - how lucky I was. FYI, Arashiyama well known for its autumn scenery, when all the trees started to change become orange and brown. I thought I wouldn't see this tree since it's already winter.

As we kept following the path, finally we arrived at Katsura river. If you just see this river from the picture, you might think there's nothing here. That's what I was thinking at the first time, but it was changed when I was there. It was really quiet and there's no one at the river side. We sat at the bench which available, and enjoyed the natural atmosphere that calmed my mind. It was peaceful, no crowd, all we heard was just the sound of running water and birds chirping. It was the best moment to start that day.

After crossing the bridge, we found different situation. We started to see rows of restaurant and food stall selling food, snack, and souvenir. Since it was early in the morning, still there's no crowd at all. We could hop from 1 store to another, and bought every kind of snacks because it's so delicious. This "snacks shopping" wasn't stopped until we arrived at our destination, Sagano Bamboo Forest.

At this forest, we started to see other tourists and even it started to crowd. We kept walking through the path until we found a quieter place and we could snap a good picture. If you want to have different experience, you can take a rickshaw ride which starts from the river side and going through bamboo forest. There are different prices for this ride, based on how long you want to ride it.

Sagano Bamboo Forest

That's all what I did at my first visit to Arashiyama. It was a very short time but we really enjoyed every second of it. After this visit, we saw a video and picture of this place when it's spring, when the weather was quite warmer than in winter. It was really beautiful. There are many peoples ride a small boat at Katsura river, and enjoy the scenery of cherry blossoms around them. Therefore, we decided to visit this place again at spring, to get a different experience.

Spring 2019
Second visit to Arashiyama, we knew exactly what we gonna do and we just went to that place directly because we had limited time. Even though this time we stayed in Kyoto, but we had other places to be visited, and we're having a very short time holiday. We started this trip by taking a train from Kawaramachi station and stopped at Arashiyama station, like our 1st trip. No other reasons, I just love this route where I could walk and enjoy the scenery and ambience of Katsura river. However I realized there are some changes in this area.

Second visit to Arashiyama, this time also with my parents

Well it's not a big changes, and I still felt the same atmosphere like it was. 4 years ago, at this river side, it was really empty. There's nothing, just some benchs by the river. But now, there are some traditional Japanese restaurants and also food stalls selling hot dish such as pork bun, which perfectly to be eaten at the cold weather. Yes, the weather in Kyoto at spring season is still cold, but not as cold as in winter. Perhaps it's because we came after lunch time, and it was also a sunny day. Thought it's gonna be very cold, I wore a winter jacket with fur (again), from a collaboration between H&M and Moschino. It's a very thick jacket so when I started too feel warm, I took it off.

Back to the travel journey. At that time, I wasn't expecting for any appearance of cherry blossoms at Arashiyama, even though I know Arashiyama is very beautiful when it surrounded with full bloom sakura. We were there at mid of March (precisely at 19 March), and it's too early. However, when we're going to cross the bridge, we spotted a tree with pink flowers that started to bloom. It's not the famous cherry blossom, it's called plum blossoms (ume) which has a deep pink color. Plum blossom blooms earlier than cherry blossoms, that's why you can find them when it's early spring time. If you want to see more of this flowers, you can visit Kitano Tenmangu Shrine in Kyoto.

A plum blossom tree before cross the bridge at Katsura river, Arashiyama - Kyoto

After crossing the bridge, we saw a very different situation of Arashiyama like we visited before. A long queue seen in front of Arabica Coffee, crowds of people filled the pedestrian street, not quite at all. However, the stores and restaurants still have the same traditional look, and it's something that I missed from Arashiyama. Looking at this crowd, we cancelled our plan to visit bamboo forest. Actually we wanted to back again to that forest to take picture with Winston - the last time we were there, Winston wasn't born yet. However Winston was sleeping at that time and the crowd changed our mood.

Cancelled our visit to bamboo forest, didn't mean we left Arashiyama immediately. We still strolling through this street, and bought some food that we never had before. It was a soft serve ice cream with sakura & green tea flavour, which only available at the spring season. It was tasty, and like other Japanese sweets, the ice cream wasn't too sweet and it's good. Besides ice cream, we also bought a cup of "yuba soup". Literally, yuba is a beancurd. However, if you think it's the same beancurd like the other, you're wrong!! This beancurd was really really soft, and you can easily eat it without chew it too much. As an information, Kyoto well known for its tofu dish, and now I understand why people love it.

Yuba soup (¥300)

Enough with snacking time, we went back to the city. But this time, we decided to take randen. The station for randen was very easy to spot, and it's a very short walk from bamboo forest. But it was very crowded so if you want to get a seat at this 40 minutes journey, you should hop into the tram at first. If you want to have more comfortable ride you also can take a train from Saga Arashiyama station, which also located not far from bamboo forest.

Randen -> from Arashiyama to Kyoto city