No Crowd Bamboo Grove, IC Charge Video, Podcast Appearance

Kyoto Bamboo Grove Without the Crowds

Jizo-in Temple gate

If you’ve been to Kyoto recently, you know that Arashiyama’s famous bamboo grove is ridiculously crowded. If you want to see a bamboo grove without the crowds, you just need to head a few kilometers south to little-known Jizo-in Temple. It’s around the corner from the famous Koke-dera (Moss Temple) and they share the same bus stop. Here’s the bamboo grove just inside the gate of Jizo-in:

Jizo-in bamboo grove

After seeing Jizo-in, walk past the bus stop and past Koke-dera and you’ll see an even more impressive bamboo grove.

Bamboo grove just past Koke-dera

How to Charge an IC Card Without a Credit Card (Video)

It’s great to have a digital IC card on your iPhone, but you cannot directly install one on your iPhone if you don’t have a MasterCard or American Express Card linked to your Apple Wallet. However, there’s a workaround: You can import a physical IC card into your phone, as described in this video. Now that physical Suica cards are once again available in Tokyo, as explained here, this is a great option for many people. And once you import the card into your phone, you can easily charge it with Japanese cash. We explain how in this new video.

Talk Travel Asia Podcast Appearance

I recently appeared on Talk Travel Asia, an excellent podcast on Asian travel run by Scott Coates and Trevor Ranges. I discussed an experiment I recently did in Japan: Traveling on the shinkansen using nothing but an iPhone. I bought the ticket with SmartEX and linked it to a digital Icoca card on my iPhone. It worked perfectly. Here is the conversation. I also described this system in an earlier newsletter here.

A New Kyoto Tour Route

Manshu-in photo by Damien Douxchamps

We recently created a new route at Chris Rowthorn Tours. It’s designed for people who really want to escape the crowds and see some quiet, rarely visited temples. We call it Kyoto Walk 6: Northern Higashiyama Temples.