Play the world in 80 days: Arashiyama Bamboo Groove

If there is one fact of life that they did not teach us in school, that is life is not fair.Some people is born healthy while some with disease; some is born poor while some is born rich...

You like your Christmas present? let me demotivate you with mine

And if you think born rich is awesome, some people gets to do more awesome thing in life like playing game with a dinosaur...

For some life is an enjoyment while sometimes for some everyday is a hunger game of survival.

There are many kind of ways people use to deal with the negativeness in life... some listen to rock music...

Some eat as much as they could...

And many of us chose to travel.

In the era of low cost airlines and budget hotels slashing price to get business, it enables more people to travel. While some decides their travel destination by experience from friends, from travel magazines; some rely on internet travel post like "best summer vacation place", " best place to visit for honeymoon" or " Places to visit before you die"

Posts like "places you would not believe are real" gets to pass around on the internet often, one of the link here. While it is really breathtaking to look at those pictures and stirred up your desire to pack and go to those places, sometimes one would wonder if the real place really is as shown in picture or it is another photoshop magic.

One of the place in the list is in Japan. The famous "Japan Bamboo Forest" or " Arashiyama Bamboo Groove" which most travel website or google will give you images like this:

Walking through this forest probably will turn you into a poet

I happened to visit one of the place in the list in year 2013. It was one of the stops in my surprise proposal trip for Rose. After long hours of flight, we arrived Japan exhausted...

Rose with the exhausted look...

A nice morning at Japan...

First meal in Japan, pork cutlet rice...

Buddha line up along the path to the bamboo forest...

Imitating the road sign...

Cute things are everywhere in Japan. One of the cute setting of house front along the route to the Bamboo groove...

Cute bunny deco sleeping on fence...

Rose found her brother's name on the truck...

Entrance of the famous bamboo forest, with rows of little shop on both sides...

And greeting us, the moment we entered to the bamboo forest... is this...

Wait, I thought the scenery that was supposed to waiting for me is like this:

Where is the dramatic green? where is the mesmerising bamboo sentinel ? It was not supposed to be like this!? Wait, let me do a little adjustment on the picture taken by myself....

After some adjustment on the saturation... and voilà!!!

More!!!

And this looks exactly like in the movie!!!

Reality: Before edit though...

Okay maybe the above grumbling is a bit of spoiler for those for wish to visit there. But the truth is the real place really not like what is shown in the picture. Not that the place is ugly, or totally not worth any visit. Is that I went there with expectation to have the dramatic scenery to wow my girl, but it did not impressed her.

She: "So, what are we here for?"

Me:" Is around you. (~.~) we are here for the bamboo forest"

She (not very impress) : "We are here for these? Ohhh"

But she was impressed with something else....

You looked so excited, should have forced you to wear one of those to take a stroll...

Without oversaturating the picture, the view of Arashiyama Bamboo Forest still has some pretty decent views though....

We spotted this little (cute again) buddha hiding on top of the stone wall near Nonomiya Shrine.

And wrote our wish on Ema, a wooden wishing plate commonly seen on Japanese shrine for wishing purpose, to be burn during specific times of the year during ceremony to bless the realization of the wishes.