Kyoto Colors

Rafting down the Hosu River Canyon

A Traditional Japanese Inn Nestled among the Foliage.

After a nice Thanksgiving meal of roasted chicken, beef chuck roast, and mashed potatoes & gravy with several of the other JETs on Wednesday, it was back to school.  You see, Japanese thanksgiving day is only one day--Nov. 23--and if it's on a weekend, well, too bad.  Nothing like the extended break we enjoy in U.S. schools.  So, the highlight of the week was Saturday's trip to Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, to see the maples turn and the colors of fall explode.  We were not disappointed--it was absolutely beautiful scenery and would have made for a pristine, romantic get-away had we not been accompanied by tens of thousands of Japanese with a few hundred foreigners thrown in. It was like being at an outdoor night club that had been filled to 150% capacity.  If we were careful, we could slip into a spot along the roped off garden and snap a picture of one of us, making it appear as if all were calm and quiet.  Luckily, we decided to skip visiting more temples in exchange for a ride in a vintage train along a private railroad hugging the side of the Hosu River Canyon and to follow that ride up with a two-hour rafting trip back down the river.  I wouldn't recommend taking children to Kyoto in the fall for leaf viewing or in the spring when the cherry blossoms or in bloom, but I certainly hope ours remember more than being packed into subways and shuffled around throngs of people; I hope they remember that they walked among the fiery maples of their mother's homeland awash in the cascade of Kyoto colors.