Closed today

Thing I think is comical is when blogs for travel tips discuss the Arashiyama path in Kyoto, they only ever mention Tenryu Ji, Gio-Ji, and Nenbutsu Ji, that's pretty much it. I was not expecting the path to be full of other tuck outs to take great shots.

It actually took me a minute to retrace my steps and find out where this was taken cause for a moment I thought it was a closed off path in the bamboo forests at Tenryu Ji. This was right before the turn onto the Saga Toriimoto street up into the forested mountains, there was this gate adorned with Chochin (paper lanterns).

So as the title of the post said, this pathway was closed, so at first I didn't think much of it until I came back to edit. Beyond this gate is a path to a traditional sit down restaurant and the Mandarasan Jakuan Temple (I think you can barely see it through the tree line)

Speaking of the trees, I'm still not entirely happy with the path and what not, it doesn't look entirely natural, but it provided enough contrast for me to go all in on the chochin and the gate which turned out exactly how I wanted it to, to stick out as the subjects, (besides the sun was a bit too bright and this was a shoot-while-I-walk scenario, I didn't have time to get my tripod out and get a bracketed shot, I had places to be). I also wanted the background just dark enough to warrant making the lanterns brighter to make it look like they were on.

Take my advice, don't take professional tips from others on Arashiyama. The area is smaller than you think, scan the area on maps and do your own research, you'll find a lot more than any blog will tell you.

Done