Autumn trip to Kyoto Part 1

My last year here in this area and this is probably my last visit to kyoto. this year's foilage has been great, the best in my 3 years here. and kyoto was no disappointment (in that aspect) as well. i was expecting a crowd, since virtually every hostel was booked out(will tell u how i got through the night later on/next post) here's a pic of my bike and my bag and tripod. i think i overdid it. bike was like 10kgs but my bag must have felt like 15kgs. i seriously don't know why it felt that heavy. it was just the normal gear. 1body,4lenses,flash,tripod, filters,etc.. the only difference from other trips was the card reader,charger and abit of snacks(how heavy can chocs be right?) i took an early train(655) so the crowd wasn't bad at all.However, when i reached kyoto, it was crazy! Especially with my first destination which was to Arashiyama. sardine packed train like those in tokyo. i had to wait for the next one cause of my gear.
this would be the gardens at tenryuji. ive been here twice but never actually went inside( no one was willing to pay then). the gardens are quite nice. i didn't go to the main building.. hard to take pictures as well :P this pic sure looked like there wasn't anyone around but there were, trust me!
the crowd at the far end.
blazing in red.
RGB-red green blue!
the gardens.
this monk was outside tenryuji.. i think i took pictures of these before when i came here with kelly and her family.
this was at some garden/temple deeper inside. the wonders of cycling. i could never have walked that far. cycling is great in kyoto, the crowd aside at this time of year. anyways, this garden was small and obscure but yet there was quite a number of people there! and like tenryuji (and many other places) tripods aren't allowed. autumn in kyoto is very photography unfriendly. most temples don't allow tripods, some wouldnt even allow monopods. the worst was this small temple here in arashiyama. no tripods/monopods/large and medium format cameras. taking photos for photographic purposes is not allowed. only snapshots!WTF. the tripod banning is quite understandable with the crowd but it really makes photography much harder.
fallen leaves on fern.

i'm pretty tired, from all the editing and lack of sleep. will post more soon!