Honestly, the bamboo “forest” isn’t worth a visit. I wonder if they post this news just to attract more tourists. The same story has been posted year after year.
It’s just a place where someone once planted a lot of bamboo thinking they’d need it as a ressource. They didn’t need it so they just left it there.
It dates back about a thousand years, so I guess it’s “natural” now, but it’s basically the remains of a human made plantation, albeit old.
The famous path through it is about a hundred meters long and a great spot to take that photo. I didn’t feel immersed in the forest at all, because the entry and exit is visible through the entire “attraction”.
There’s a nice temple with an impressive garden close by and some random rich rock star dude also build a mansion with a garden on top of the mountain next to the forest, and that’s it.
The whole thing felt like the kind of place that you only want to go if you’re a tourist with nothing better to do.
Kyoto is still worth visiting as a whole. The thousand gates on mt. Inari is a much better use of your time.
On a walk through the woods near my house nearly every large tree has names or initials carved into it. I even found a swastika on one.
Disgusting and depressing. Humans can be so disgusting sometimes.
I think we all make impulsive poor choices sometimes. It really sucks, though, when that impulsive poor choice is permanent and publicly visible.
Same with tourists defacing and stealing bones from the Paris catacombs.
When we visited several years back they had to have guides trailing in the dark watching everyone to ensure tourists didn’t smash or steal or carve their initials into the old bones. We saw quite a bit of (what looked like) recent damage and defacing.
People who feel the need to vandalise stuff just for fun need significant consequences. I think reciprocity would work well. Carved your name on something? This is going to hurt. Kicked and broke a femur? Oh dear.
If you travel to Japan, honestly just… Skip Kyoto. It is so full of tourists (national and international), you cannot possibly imagine unless you’ve seen it.
Sure, there’s a lot of impressive temples there. But so is the rest of the country.
We were lucky enough to spend 4 weeks in Japan earlier this year, and if I could do the trip again, I would straight-up skip Kyoto and Osaka.
Rent a car, drive in some random direction. You’ll he a lot happier, it it will actually be your trip. By far the best memories coke from places not in any travel guide.
Rent a car, drive in some random direction
instructions unclear, am now drowning in my keicar in the ocean
I mean… that’s a pretty memorable trip, no?
Counter point: I loved osaka and kyoto, would skip tokyo before them. On kyoto we went up to the main temples using side streets and small foot paths and down on the main road.
We stayed in a regular neighborhood in osaka, drank and had fun on small 5-people bars with the locals and visited the city center occasionally. Made me appreciate the quiet japanese life even in a big city. Very charming city
Interesting. We really enjoyed Tokyo, but spent most of our time there in smaller, out of the way areas. Absolutely loved it.
Though my favorite memories are from a super tiny seaside town (no public transport, ended up there because we misread the map) in the middle of nowhere.
I would stay near (ish) to Kyoto and just go one day, the National Museum in Kyoto is really good and you can see the rest of what you want to see quite quickly. It is about as commercialized as you can get for a town in Japan, its approaching Disney levels of parody.
Staying further away lowers the cost and as long as its on one of the direct train lines into Kyoto it doesnt take long to get there. There is a lot to do in daily travelable distance in the region that is a better use of your time.
If there’s specific things you want to do that happen to be in Kyoto, I agree. I just think (somewhat from personal experience) that going to Kyoto because that’s what you should do on a Japan trip is a bad idea.
If you look at stuff in Kyoto at 5 am in the morning (or earlier) it is nice and empty.
Source lived in the Region for a year
Yeah but then most of the things people come to Kyoto for a closed.
Not saying I disagree.
I mean, fair point. i was mainly thinking of temples and stuff where you can run around without having to go inside.
True. Especially the more “popular” temples are only open during regular hours, though.
In any case, I don’t doubt that you can have lots of fun and have the city for yourself at early hours!
Oh, and while I’m at it: do not trust any food recommendation written in English. Good or bad.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
I’m currently in Japan and visited Kyoto and the bamboo grove a few days ago. Tourists here are such shitheads. Because the Japanese yen is so low, traveling to Japan suddenly became very accessible and brought in all kinds of shitheads that have no idea what courtesy or basic human decency is.
Tourists not knowing courtesy or basic human decency isn’t restricted to any economic class. Japanese tourist hotspots have suffered from this since forever.
I’m in Japan right now and the country is being overrun (I’m part of the problem). When I lived here a decade back every place was so much calmer.
And I do see a lot of shitty behavior, but I can’t say if it’s more.
Why do people have to be shit?
Per Wikipedia:
Prior to 2015, there was a charge to access the forest.[2]
Maybe reinstate the entry fee?
According to a different source (german) I found, they plan to restrict access at certain times, cordon off some areas, and provide more active staff.
This is the way. Kyoto is incredibly rich and can easily afford to protect itself.
People would still do it because people.
People. What a bunch of bastards.
Damn people, they ruined civilization!
How can society ruined society!?
straight to jail
I’ve been there - it’s a small theme park made for tourists and it’s absolutely packed unless you go really early. It’s a shame that tourists act shit but it’s a basic probability if you allow such masses of people without seriously investing into infrastructure and protections.
There really isn’t anything exception about this issue and the rise of “tourists bad in Japan” is making me really think about alt-right propaganda machine kicking into gear in Japan.
Doesn’t bamboo grow like insanely fast
Insanely
Take them one stop further to Hozukyō and throw them into the gorge.
Wait, what?
I suspect there must be an additional missing background information here, as the bamboo-knife-carving really is oddly specific somehow…It’s people carving shit on the surface of a plant. This shouldn’t have to be a conspiracy theory level mystery. People are fuck heads and that’s all it is.
I see it here at bamboo groves in Australia. Its not at all surprising to me.
Ok, so we can rule out some influencer shit going on that I had in mind.
Still… perhaps it is because we don’t have any bamboo around were l live, as I still don’t get the “why”.
Is it easy to carve? Some eastern tradition? I would never even consider it, also as bamboo doesn’t even look like a good place to carve something, not to speak of being the garden part of a freakin’ temple.
Or is it because bamboo is generally seen more as a fast-growing throw-away item?Saw a video about tourism problems in Norway. They have old wooden buildings there and people not only carve stuff in, they actually rip pieces out to take with them. It’s just that many people have no respect and think the world is their personal playing field.
On top of that, once someone starts messing with things, others see it as an invitation to do the same.
“Broken window theory”.
Yes, was also thinking along that line.
That would also mean that the green bands covering the stuff up are a sensible measure.
