Enjoy the moment while it lasts, because the two of you might not last forever.
Kyoto is one of the most beautiful places in Japan, and the city’s aesthetic charms aren’t limited to temples and shrines. For example on the eastern outskirts of town, in Sakyo Ward, you’ll find the Keage Incline.
The sloping pathway was originally part of a transportation network that connected Kyoto and Lake Biwa, found over the prefectural border to the east in Shiga Prefecture. To link two canals, boats were put on rail cars and transported up or down the incline, which his why the path is so wide.
Now a pedestrian walkway, a place this picturesque is obviously a popular date spot, especially during cherry blossom season. As pointed out by Japanese Twitter user @dashiegg_, a common lovey-dovey activity is for you and your sweetheart to stand atop the rails and walk hand-in-hand up the incline, like in the photo below.
But while there’s definitely a romantic atmosphere to that snapshot, @dashiegg_ has also pointed out that there’s a much less warm-and-fuzzy reality waiting up ahead.
“It seems like straddling the rails and holding hands while you walk up the Keage Incline has become a thing. But the two rails the couples are standing on are actually different lines.
Every time I see this, I want to say ‘Hey! You guys are gonna be going down completely separate paths!’”
Sure enough, if you take a careful enough look at the tracks, you’ll see that he’s right. The inner rails are only close enough for couples to easily reach each other’s hands because they’re way narrower than the tracks for a train car would be, and so if both parties keep walking on the rails they’re standing on, eventually they’ll have to disentwine their fingers and say good-bye.
That said, in a follow-up tweet @dashiegg_ makes it clear he’s not really trying to rain on anyone’s parade. “Eh, but I still think it looks pretty and it’s a good travel picture spot, so the most important thing is to enjoy it however you want to.” And really, when you stop and think about it, we’re all on our own individual tracks in life until we meet that special someone and hop onto theirs, or go find a new track together.
Source: Twitter/@dashiegg_ via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
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