2016年12月2日金曜日

2016年12月2日金曜日 -

Charles: Arashiyama Trip

             I recently made another trip to Arashiyama in Kyoto with my wife. I live in Osaka so Kyoto is pretty close by. I was able to go for the day and be back just after dark.
　　　　I'd visited Arashiyama about four years ago so I already knew the area pretty well but the weather was completely different this time. The first time I visited in August and it was brutally hot and muggy. The sun was blazing with intensity. Despite the heat we enjoyed the classic temples and gardens and even stopped in at the train museum which had some kind of musical act going on. Then we rode the scenic train over the river.

 　　　　This time, we visited in November. Obviously, it was much cooler and less exhausting this time. It rained a little at first, but by the time we stopped into a cafe, it was down-pouring. We lucked out though because we had a really nice view of some of the shops and the colorful mountains from our table. I could hear the pitter-patter of the rain on the roof shingles outside as I had my salmon bowl and coffee. The atmosphere was fantastic.

           Once the rain let up we walked down to the temple. We tried some kind of Japanese snack on the way there. I ordered in Japanese but I messed up my sentence with the wrong counting system. I only realized this after because the shopkeeper understood what I meant and played along. I'm not sure what the snack was called but it was a ball of mochi with some kind of strawberry cream inside and a strawberry on top. It's similar to the Japanese snack Daifuku but the strawberry was on top instead of inside. It might still be called that or some variation of that.

　　　The temple walk was relaxing as we didn't have any deadlines or any checklist to fill out this time. Overall, I think I enjoyed this trip more than the first time. There wasn't any outstanding event but the general atmosphere and tranquility was thoroughly enjoyable.

brutally： 残忍に
muggy： 蒸し暑い
blazing： very hot： 焼けつくような
shingles： roof tiles： 屋根瓦
atmosphere： the mood or tone of a place： 雰囲気
tranquility： peacefulness, calm： 静けさ
picked up： increased, rose： 激しくなった
down-pouring： raining heavily： 土砂降りになる
lucked out： were lucky： 運よく
pitter-patter： sound of rain： パラパラと
messed up： ruined: 間違えて
played along： continued without stopping, ignore that something is wrong： 素知らぬふりをする
fill out： complete：埋める