End of the Road/Matsuo Shrine

A few weeks ago I had a free day (which are rarer than I expected), and decided to take a bike ride down one of the huge streets I live near, in search of a venue that a band I like was planning on playing at. The name of the street is 四条 (Shi-jou, "4th Street") and it runs east-west for quite a while. If I head east from where I live, I'll cross the Kamo River right away, head through the tradional/touristy area known as Gion, and then after about half a mile get to Yasaka Shrine, which is where Shi-jou ends in that direction. However, if I head west, which I did in search of this venue, I'll go through more shopping areas, big buildings, and crowded streets. I eventually found this venue, but decided once I was there to just keep on going until Shi-jou ended, since after all, it had to end at some point. It took me past more big buildings, the beginnings of some kind of street fair, and then gradually into a more residential area. I eventually came to a huge bridge that crossed the Katsura River, which was when I took the picture below.


So I crossed this huge bridge, and a few minutes later finally came to the end of Shi-jou. I was also pleased to find a pretty good-sized shrine there tucked at the feet of some mountains. As I said, I had no idea where the end of Shi-jou was nor what was there, so finding Matsuo Shrine at the end of my odyssey was quite poetic.



The shrine was really beautiful, which added to the whole experience. The pictures show it a little, but behind and around most of Matsuo Shrine is a forest and some mountains. It kind of reminded me of some Hayao Miyazaki films, which I highly recommend if you've never seen any. They're all animated, and lots of scenes take place in forests with traditional spirits interacting with children from the regular world.




As you can see from most of the pictures, the sky was a thick grey, which I should have noticed at the time. The majority of my hour long bike ride back was in the rain, but that too, in an odd way, added to the whole adventure of going there and heading back, etc. etc. I stopped at a grocery store on the way home and picked up a bitter melon, since the smaller grocery store by my apartment doesn't have carry any. Since then, I've gone to that grocery store again to pick up other things my grocery store doesn't have, which ended being mostly snacks :)