For Nicky’s birthday, I made plans to take her to Arashiyama, the first
station for the Sagano Romantic Train, a tram railway that takes riders
through the Hozu Gorge.
Today, we
went to Arashiyama to celebrate Nicky’s 25th birthday. I had been
wanting to take her on the Romantic Train before we had even come to
Japan, so I was really excited. I was pretty proud of myself for finding
it, since the streets were unmarked and it was a good thirty minute
ride by bicycle from home. I had to use the river as my location gauge
at one point.
When we got up that morning, I
promised Nicky that, if she found something cute that she wanted for her
birthday on the way, I would buy it for her. We had been tossing around
the idea of getting a fennec fox while in Japan, but over the last few
days, we discovered that there are no more active breeders in the
country so had to give up. Nicky jokingly asked me if I would buy her a
fox if we happened across one. On the way to Arashiyama, we actually
found a pet store. Deciding to step in after seeing a chipmunk doing
somersaults in the window, we weren’t expecting to find anything really
special, but right inside, staring at us from his cage, was the most
fox-like dog I had ever seen.
After staring at this dog for almost
twenty minutes, the shopkeeper started to tell us about him in Japanese.
Apparently, he is a Shiba-inu, one of the ancient breeds of Japan. Even
though he is a purebred, his nose is slightly longer and his legs are
slightly taller than what is normal for the dog. He is also pretty
skinny, but we think it’s because he doesn’t get fed much there. On
September 30th, he will be turning a year old. The price tag for this
dog was a hefty $500, but the shopkeeper promised to give us a 40%
discount, so it was really hard to say no. .....so we didn’t! We will be
picking him up tomorrow!
After the excitement of the new dog, I
was looking forward to taking the train. The train station was pretty
cool~ it had a whole bunch of train engine models and other ancient
forms of transport. The train ride itself is absolutely gorgeous. 25
minutes of running along the gorge, tunnels and nature. The announcer
was pretty loud on the trip out [which made Nicky and I wonder what
Japan’s definition of ‘romantic’ is], but it was really quiet on the way
back. I had so much fun, but it is certainly better expressed with
pictures [which can be found in my gallery]. The final station leaves
you in a farming area with views of the mountains and river, and Nicky
and I greatly enjoyed the 40 minutes we spent waiting for the next
train, since there was no one else in the station, and the station
itself was quite beautiful.
On the ride back, the announcer was
much more quiet, and the couple who had bought the other two seats to
our booth were walking around taking pictures, so it felt much more
romantic than the train ride down. I definitely want to go back in
November, when the maples are all red, the pictures they had of Autumn
are stunning.
We went
home afterwards, since we need to dog-proof the house, but it was still
super fun! I highly recommend this train ride to anyone. Not only is it
beautiful, it’s really cheap! $6 each way!