Ine, haiku, snow

 It was a struggle to get from Kyoto to INE. One special train and a bus. Ine is on the coast of Kyoto prefecture ? and is three hours from Kyoto city. As soon as the train was underway, the snow began, so our view was beautiful countryside, fat snowflakes and winter wonderland.

View from train

Next, we changed to a bus in Amonohashidate. Of course, we had to eat, so we went to a cute local place for local crab first.

Before

After

A scene from the restaurant.

The outside view of our restaurant.

We then boarded our very crowded bus (French, Australian, and New Zealand plus locals) and continued along the coastline to INE.

Our room has a lovely view of the water, prompting us to sit and watch the snowflakes fall on the water for hours at a time.

I wrote a bad haiku:

Voluptuous snow

Caresses the Inland Sea

Winter love affair

I learned from Naohiro 

Ine has a "UTAMAKURA", means place that is often written about in Waka poetry.

"Waka poetry" is japanese old style poem. It is Influenced old haiku poets.

A lots Haiku poets visit UTAMAKURA，and they wrote Haiku at the place.

No wonder you want to write haiku.

We hopped a cab to another local restaurant where we enjoyed an elaborate meal….shown here.

Leaving INE was a little challenging.We first stopped at a sake factory, which smelled lovely. I grabbed a small bottle (backpack too heavy already) ane we ended up marching back and forth on the very snowy road, asking directions and getting the wrong answers every time.