Papajojo

Hunting the Momiji at Arashiyama

Posted on 11. Dec, 2009 by James in Sightseeing

Arashiyama Momiji 2009

This is my first post after couple of weeks and this time i’ll write about Momiji. I remember few weeks ago when i posted a status update on my Facebook about Momiji, then one of my Indonesian friend asked me what Momiji is? Then when i posted some pictures about Momiji on my Facebook, my sister asked me what kind of tree that is, looks like Maple in FarmVille. Yeah, that’s right. So i guess Momiji is not so popular like what i thought before.

I’m not going to talk about the Momiji it self anyway as you can find it easily in Wikipedia. But basically, what i understand from what people said, Momiji or Iromomiji is the condition where the color of Maple trees becomes red which is happened during the Fall in Japan. The name of these Maple trees is Acer palmatum, called Japanese Maple or Smooth Japanese Maple and this species is native to Japan, Korea and China.

I went twice to Arashiyama, one of the best place to see Momiji in Japan. The first time, i went with my family including my parents in law which came to Japan couple of weeks ago. And the second time was with my Indonesian friends. Arashiyama can be reached by train and it takes about 1 hour from Umeda, one of central train station in Osaka. You can also go there by bus or car but i don’t really know the route so i recommend to use the Hankyu train.

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I would prefer to come to Arashiyama during the week days since during the weekend or holidays the place are so crowded. You can compare those two pictures below taken from the same street. The first one was taken during my first visit which was not on the weekend or holiday and compare with the second picture.

Arashiyama Main Street during Weekdays

Arashiyama Main Street during Weekend/Holidays

Basically if someone ask you what to see in Arashiyama, the answer will be the Momiji. But actually there are another places you can visit but most of them are temples. One of the nice place to see is the bamboo forest and close to that place there’s one station where you can enjoy what they call Torokko Romantic Train Ride. Unfortunately when we went there the ticket was sold out for that day. But the thing that attracted my attention most were the Pedicab, not sure this is Japanese or Chinese Pedicab. While sight seeing at Arashiyama you’ll see some pedicabs on the streets and looks like the passengers are really enjoy the ride.

Arashiyama Bamboo Forest

Arashiyama Torokko Romantic Train Ride

Arashiyama Pedicab Ride

Well anyway, Arashiyama is a nice place to go and the Momiji was beautiful although you can find the same trees around any places in Japan during the Fall. So the conclusion, Arashiyama is a recommended place for sight seeing.

Tags: Arashiyama, Bamboo Forest, Momiji, Pedicab Ride, Sight Seeing, Torokko