“Tonbo” is the Japanese word for “dragonfly.” How do I know? After a long day of walking over 20,000 steps through Kyoto, and a nice dinner, my partner and I ended up in a bar of the same name.
The bartender was well-versed in English, and beyond nice cocktails, he offered jokes, surprises, and advice. For one, he had a massive stack of foreigners’ ID cards, driver licenses, library passes, and more. Expired keepsakes tourists had gifted him over the years. He folded the cutest little origami swan that could not only flap its wings if you pulled its tail, you could even hang it on your glass by its beak. And he told us a secret one could not find in the tourist guide books he allowed us to browse while sitting at his counter: Right next to Fushimi Inari, Kyoto’s “1,000 Gates” shrine and most famous attraction, there was a hidden bamboo forest no one knew about.
Kyoto also has a popular bamboo forest, of course. But unless you go at sunrise, you’ll never get a clean picture, let alone a peaceful experience of wandering through the tall stalks. So instead of ruining our necks amidst a sea of tourists, we decided to take our kind host up on his recommendation the next day.
The shrine sits atop a mountain but covers a big area. It comes with a complete loop trail you can hike all the way up and back down again. Looking at everything in detail takes several hours, but every visitor’s journey begins at the train station. After a short walk through a touristy street with nice shops and food vendors, you enter through the main gate. Then, you traverse the grounds until you reach the first set of the shrines’ famous torii gates, which is where your ascent truly begins.
Right next to those gates, a small path veers off into the woods. Just a few steps in, we were all by ourselves. For the next 50 meters or so, we walked right beside the gates through which hundreds of tourists kept squeezing. It was a fascinating perspective, not just of the shrine, but of the people, too. After a wide bend, a toilet house, and a few more minutes on a forest path, we saw it. “Only those with good luck will find this place,” a laminated sign, bolted to a concrete pillar, read.
The forest was small, and the path through it short, but it was still beautiful, and, perhaps most importantly, entirely deserted. We didn’t encounter a single person on our way there or back. We could take pictures in our own time, enjoy the view, and get a bit of “real jungle feeling” given our more natural surroundings. Then, we walked back and began our climb, joining our fellow tourists once more.
We all want to see the main event. That’s a fine aspiration to have, and even if we miss it, we might stumble into a wonderful alternative. But what’s also worth aspiring to is looking at what’s around the main event. That’s often a matter of listening more so than seeking, yet it can yield just as fruitful, sometimes even better results.
Every now and then, the right place for you will lie next to the main event. Just like a little bar in a small alley off the main road did for us—for it led us to yet another backstage worth peeking into. Tread off the worn path once in a while. It may only take a few meters to find what everyone else is missing.
