Kyoto Adventure: Day 4

I checked out of my hotel at 10 am and went to Kyoto station to put my luggage in a locker before heading out to Arashiyama. Arashiyama was last on my list of places to visit in Kyoto - I especially wanted to see the bamboo groves there.
I took the bus to Arashiyama - it's about 40 minutes from Kyoto station. It's hard to believe that Arashiyama is part of Kyoto. Downtown Kyoto and all the tourist traps are so crowded and busy, but Arashiyama is open and scenic. It was so nice to be away from gajillions of people. It was a beautiful day, too.
I read about Arashiyama's bamboo groves in my guidebook and and knew I had to check them out. They're basically a main path through thousands of tall beautiful bamboo trees. It was really gorgeous - the sound of the wind rustling the leaves was really soothing.

After walking through the groves, I had lunch at a cute little restaurant and then went for a walk down along the river.

I had a lot of time to kill and I really enjoyed the bamboo groves, so I headed back there to get a few more photos.

After Arashiyama, I went back to Kyoto station, had dinner and coffee, then took the bus back to Shizuoka.

And that's that. My four day trip to Kyoto is over and I'm back in Fujieda. I had a busy four days and I'm exhausted, but really happy I went. I visited so many places that I've been wanting to see and took a lot of photos. I was a little nervous to go by myself, but everything was fine, and I even used a little Japanese here and there!