Kyoto struggling with tourists defacing beloved bamboo forest
Kyoto struggling with tourists defacing beloved bamboo forest | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis
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.
Kyoto didn't impress me that much, but the forest was one of the greatest disappointments of my trip, even it there wouldn't be A lot of people it would've been very mid
This is why we can't have nice things.
People are scum
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.
Tourist hotspots have suffered from this since forever.
Tourism is a cancer and generates nothing but misery for the people living in beautiful places. Oh and I guess it increases tax money for the government officials to live their pockets with.
Get the fuck out.
My usual walk takes me through a portion of a popular hiking trail that crosses the entire country.
That short time I am on the trail before dipping down to my usual small path is nothing but poop bags tied to branches.
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.
While I don't like the state being the sole arbiter of violence, this is one use I might look away for.
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.
Reminds me when I went to the St. Louis Arch recently and saw all the markings all over the bottom of both sides. Sure it's not exactly nature getting ruined, but the thing is a symbol of the area I love that brings many people joy and reminds us that we're home. Seeing it treated like that was sad.
Lot of wisdom in that last paragraph, scars are bittersweet memories of learning opportunities.
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.
Oh, and while I'm at it: do not trust any food recommendation written in English. Good or bad.
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.
Why do people have to be shit?
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
depending on the species, eco tourism actually have damaging results for wild habitats.
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?
Call me crazy, but who cares? It's bamboo. Those names will disappear in about a week. Reinstate the entry fee, have a guy water-bottle-spray teens carving up the grass too much, and call it a day. It's not that complicated, nor a huge deal, it's bamboo.
That's not how bamboo works. Those names will stay there. Once a shoot is grown it's grown, it doesn't keep growing indefinitely.
I think I've got an even better idea, then. Make the carving the main attraction. Cut the shoots down after everyone's done, let it grow until it's tall again, and repeat the process.
You could make it play into some historical traditions of impermanence and cycles of death & rebirth