Earth Day hike in Arashiyama

Jessica Bryant

We arrived at Arashiyama and our first stop was for Yuba Ice cream! Arashiyama has the most amazing Tofu shops that sell fresh, locally produced Soya products, such a good way to start Earth day. After that we headed out to start the hike.

We found a small opening between houses that led up to to the woods. It is very beautiful around here with bamboo in abundance; coming from England this is an exciting and very special place, as back home bamboo does not grow much higher than 5ft!! Along our way to the peak we came across a rather curious fellow… the most brilliantly-coloured beetle I had ever seen!

After a beautiful walk through the woods we stopped at the peak for a picnic, Yuri and Ken had packed an amazing picnic for us, we also drank Matcha to refresh us for our next steps whilst looking out over Kyoto city and the surrounding mountains. We all contributed to decorate a flag to celebrate Earth Day…

After our picnic and amazing views we descended to the cricket temple. The temple had a wonderful garden with every type of bamboo you could get, it was the first time I had ever seen Black Bamboo. After the cricket temple we visited two beautiful Shinto shrines, one large and very popular and the other small, secluded and local. Both were equally breath−taking and seemed to blend into the surrounding landscape.

The Earth day hike was a wonderful way to celebrate Earth Day and a good reminder of what we are fighting for. There are so many ways we can still live in harmony with our planet and this day was a great reminder of this.