Stephanie in Japan: An Autumn Date in Kyoto

I remember when I was a college student learning Japanese. In class, my Japanese teacher said that Japanese fall is prettier than American fall. I was almost offended becausefall is my favorite season, and even though all I knew was America’s fall, to me it was one of the most beautiful things. It’s amazing how traveling to different countries can change your perspective and ways of thinking. After going abroad, you learn things about your own culture and find out that what you thought made your home country unique actually isn’t unique to your country at all. Alternatively, you can learn what actually makes your home different from other places in the world. Before moving to Japan and exploring other countries, I was truly naive. It makes me think about how many other places and cultures in the world I want to visit and experience and what I can learn from them. I am still ignorant about many things, I’m sure.

So when I came to Japan and experienced my first fall here, I learned that my teacher was correct, and Japanese fall is indeed prettier. I gave it some thought, and I came up with three possible reasons why.

First, Japan has different types of trees that aren’t common in America, ones that are particularly vibrant in the fall. The kind that comes to mind at first is the Japanese maple. These trees turn brilliant hues of orange and red. The leaves themselves are small and cute with a nice shape. Actually, the shape closely resembles marijuana leaves which lead to some hilarious misunderstandings because Japanese will buy clothes with Jamaican colors and marijuana leaves on them because they think it’s a cute Japanese maple leaf. Haha!

A Japanese Maple.

A close-up of the leaves,

Next, although America (well most of America) has four seasons like Japan, the Japanese tend to take more pride in their four seasons and make a big deal out of them. I previously wrote a post on fall illuminations. It’s where they shine spotlights on the colorful changing trees in a temple at night. It’s like walking through a sea of fire. Check out that post for pictures. No matter what time of year, there is always something beautiful in bloom. This is taken into consideration and the foliage in cities, parks, gardens, etc. are arranged in such a way that it’s pleasing to the eye throughout the different times of the year. It’s amazing, really. I imagine some people are paid to put a lot of thought and consideration into what types of plants to use and how to arrange them. Also, it seems to me that Japanese people in general have a natural ability or knack for this sort of thing because even peoples’ homes have intricate arrangements outside their doors and such. Maybe it stems from their traditional culture of flower arranging (aka ikebana).

Last, Japan’s natural landscape caters to the display of fall colors. Almost every town has tree-covered mountains and hills. The sight of the green mountains speckled with bright reds, oranges, and yellows is something you never sick of. The dazzling trees also serve as a nice backdrop to Japanese temples and Shrines. Imagine standing on the grounds of a peaceful Japanese temple surrounded by woods accented with spots of fall colors that bring warmth to the cool atmosphere. A light breeze blows, and you can hear the little multicolored leaves shudder and see them blow across the mossy stone ground. It really is something of a spiritual feeling. For all of these reasons, I believe Japan wins the prettier fall award.

Mountains speckled with color.

In my post, “Goals and Blowfish” I wrote about some of my goals while living in Japan. One of them is to not miss kouyou (fall leaf viewing). I have done well to keep that goal each year. This year I went to the Arashiyama area of Kyoto with Shinya for a fall date. It was very pretty. My only complaint was that it was extremely crowded. Arashiyama is famous for fall leaf viewing, so I guess it was to be expected.

When we got there, we got snacks and sat by the river soaking in the view. It was cool outside, but not uncomfortable. After that, we climbed the mountain to the monkey park. We could see many nice trees on the way up. I have been to the monkey park several times, but Shinya had never been to it, and since monkeys are his favorite animal, I thought he’d enjoy it. The view from the top of the mountain is breathtaking. You can see all of Kyoto city.

Sitting by the river, taking in the view.

View of Kyoto from the top of the mountain.

Shinya feeding a monkey.

After spending a little time feeding the monkeys, we made our way down the mountain and checked out Tenryuji, a temple nearby. I figured it would have some beautiful trees, which it did. We also made a brief visit to the bamboo forest since Shinya had never seen that either.

Tenryuji.

Aside from seeing the fall colors, we were also excited to eat a Kyoto meibutsu or local specialty. Kyoto has several of them such as yudofu, yuba, and soba. Shinya and I both like tofu a lot, so we decided to eat yudofu which is tofu boiled in a broth and then dipped into sauce with various garnishes. In the set meal we ordered, yuba (tofu skin) was also served, so we were lucky because we got to eat both. It ended up being a nice little day trip together.