Bamboo Grove

I was up at 7am. I put the heater on this morning, I didn’t want to shiver this morning.

8am. Sam was up.



9.30am. We leave the house. It is a lovely sunny blue sky kind of day.

We find the bus stop near the park on Marutanachi-dori Street, then walk down the road looking for breakfast.

At the next big intersection, the one after our big intersection with the good coffee, we find our Tokyo breakfast place, or a franchise of. I eat a big hamburger patty with rice and an egg, a salad, and some miso soup. Sam eats a curry with rice a salad and miso soup.

The bus stop is just across the big intersection. We could have ridden our bikes to the Bamboo Grove, it was a nice enough day for it.

10.35am. We catch the 93 bus to the Bamboo Grove. 193 yen, flat rate. The seats are electric blue velour. The air is warm, I open a window. I’m always opening windows on public transport, if the windows are openable. The rest of us are to cossetted in heat atmospheres to contemplate such radical action. The movement and stuffiness of the bus makes me sleepy.

The bus stops on a narrow road, and we get off. There are people everywhere. Oh, all the people. What was I expecting, I think as I push passed some of the slow, crippled ones? (Ha ha, only kidding)

11am. We walk the Bamboo Walk. There is a grove of bamboo which must have been planted relatively recently nearer to the main street.

“This can’t be it?” I question.

Sam looks quizzical.

We head off down one of the paths, not really sure where we are going. The hot rickshaw boys, with their black tights, thoroughbred legs and winning smiles, pull their rickshaws passed us.

The path leads us over a train line. We stop on the long straight train track and take a photo.

“See that man,” says Sam. “He’s really ugly.” He was taking a shot of the train tracks in front of us. And he was ugly, tall like lurch and wearing active wear, with absolutely no right to be doing so. Some people are completely unaware.

It is a lovely day, it is just like walking in the country, and it must still be the outskirts of Kyoto. We walk passed a drained lake, not sure why it is drained. There are men doing some sort of excavation work nearby, I wonder if that has something to do with the depleted water?

We find the big bamboo walk, the one you see in all the brochures, and take photos, with the other 1000 people taking photos. The path descends down through the bamboo. It is cooler in the shadow of the tall bamboo.

There are quite a few temples to visit, but we don’t, we’ve seen enough temples.

We wander back down to the main street, heading to the river and the bridge, because we hear people talking about the river and the bridge.

I feel lost in a tourist theme park, sometimes, with the huge number of tourists at these must see attractions. The numbers kind of ruin them. It is so busy with people. The bridge is choked with people, the river is lovely, when viewed through a zoom lens.

12.30pm. We catch the 93 bus out.

12.45pm. On the bus on the way home. There was day of the living dead on the bus, the collective age was 1000. I’m sure it must have been pension day. Every person getting on the bus seemed to be over 80 years old. It was like god’s waiting room on wheels.

1.25pm. We’re home again.

We lay down and had a nap.

3.30pm. Off to the coffee shop to drink coffee.

We are riding our bikes in the warm afternoon, lovely it is too.

It almost feels like peak hour there are more cars than I am used to seeing.

We park our bikes in the multi-level bike car park near the entrance to the market.

4pm. We’re at the Excelsior Caffe drinking coffee. It is always coffee time, my friends, you must have worked that out by now. Oh, come one, I have got my 6, or 7, cups a day down to 2, on some days 1.

The sun is shining.

6pm. We’re eating in town, next to Gion, down an alley, where they cheer in the patrons, where they don’t have an English menu and where they announce the order to the kitchen by microphone.

But they do have smiley, handsome waiters. Big, strapping boys with black bandanas, sparkly eyes and toothy grins.

One patron is carried in appearing to be drunk, or disabled, it is hard to tell. No, he is drunk, very drunk. They prop him up at the bar.

“Where are we?” asks Sam.

“You chose,” I say.

I think the Yakusa are sitting at the next table. My meal turns out to be fried rice and ramen. Sam’s is omelette gyoza soup. I



We ride to Gion and walk amongst all the tiny streets lined with restaurants. So, this is the Gion they all talk about. We wish we hadn’t eaten before, otherwise we would have eaten here. The restaurants look expensive, it would have been nice to have an expensive dinner.

The tourists are packing the alleyways, so we get out, leave them to it. It is pretty though.

We take photos on the bridge. We ride along the river. We take the scenic route home.

6.50pm. The river at dusk is quite picturesque, romantic even. The Duck River.

We spot another BookOff and take a look inside. The nerds are lining the isles inside, but the selection isn’t the same as Tokyo, the population isn’t there. There are no CDs that I want, unlike Tokyo where I could choose between many.

We ride home. Our bikes have lights, so we switch them on, but it doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference to the bike riders of Kyoto, light, no lights, and nobody wears a helmet.