japan
yoko by the sea, kanagawa
one day in kyoto
26 hours of transit later, i found myself on a nighttime shinkansen to kyoto, watching the city lights dance around the darkness.
i slept soundly in a little attic room of the home of a older woman named keiko, who, because of my jet lag, spent a lot of time with me in the early morning sharing breakfast and watching japanese television. a lot of it consisted of celebrities commenting on visuals of most delicious food in tokyo. something was strangely familiar and comforting about the slow morning. we watched the sunrise and laid our eyes on a snow-laden kyoto -- the first snowfall of the year.
at 7am, i bundled up in five layers of clothing and made my way to the station to catch a train to fushimi inari, the shrine of 10,000 red gates. the cold chill of the air clashed with the warmth of my breath.
it was so quiet. all you could hear was the sound of your own footsteps, nearby cats softly whining at each other, and the aching of snow melting in the morning sun.
i left at around 10am, when the entirety of inari mountain began to awaken with people coming to hike, take pictures, and pray. because the day was still young, i decided to fulfill a year-long curiosity and revel in my love for train rides. with some plum-filled onigiri from 7/11 packed in my backpack, i made my way to nara - a 1.5 hour train ride away.
the stay in nara was short, and the stay in the deer park was even shorter. watching the deer bite at my coat and push me around for food with their shaved antlers was heartbreaking. after walking quite a distance, i found a little deer resting by a tree alone; i sat by her and pet her for a while before making my way back to the station to go straight to arashiyama's bamboo grove.
i took photographs for large groups of families and happy couples and felt a pang of loneliness amongst the endless crowds. i kept my eyes up where the leaves began to blend with the clouds and saw the bamboo sway a slightly.
