After a very successful trip in the morning to Takao, we still had a lot of temples and shrines on our list that we were very interested in seeing. We finished lunch at another soba shop before seeing one of the most famed sites in Japan. Kinkaku-Ji, which is better known as The Golden Pavilion. The actual temple area is properly called Rokuon-ji temple. It was a villa of a man during the 1220's. The famed site, a pavilion that is completely painted gold was impressive but not nearly as impressive that one of the most well known sites in Japan should be. If anything, it was a major tourist trap that gives you that picture that says "Yes, I've been to Japan." I'm still glad we went because if we didn't, every single time I told a person I went to Kyoto, they would have asked if I saw that spot and I would have had to answer no and explain myself. Instead, I was able to say yes, and agree that yes, it is really beautiful! Not that it's not beautiful, just not as amazing as they make it out to be. The pond that is before the pavilion is named kyoki-chi which means, mirror pond. Quite perfect really as it did reflect the golden pavilion quite well.
The pavilion consists of 3 types of architecture. The 1st floor, Shinden-zukuri is palace styled. The 2nd floor is buke-zukuri, the style of the samurai house. The 3rd floor is karayou style or Zen temple style. This temple area became a World Heritage site in 1994 due to it's history.
The next stop on our route was catching another bus to ryoanji temple. The temple area is famed for a zen rock garden. It was founded in 1450 for a school of Zen. The area consists of a circular path with many things to step off of the path to see. Some of these include the main temple named Kuri which houses the rock garden, a beautiful pond, and a few other smaller buildings.
The rock garden is twenty five meters going from east to west and only ten meters from south to north. It is definitely in the form of a rectangle. It really only consists of millions of smaller rocks with fifteen large rocks laid about. There are no trees or plants. According to the legend of the area, it is up to each visitor to discover for himself or herself what the unique garden signifies. They say that the longer you gaze at the garden, the more varied your imagination will become. The rock garden that is surrounded be low earthen walls is the epitome of Zen art. It's believed that this rock garden was laid out in 1525.
Another item worth noting at this temple is a famous wash-basin of stone called "tsukubai". Apparently it has a unique inscription that says "I learn only to be contented" in kanji. This phrase is an important concept in the Zen philosophy. It is meant that the person who learns only to be contented is spiritually rich, while the one who does not learn to be contented is spiritually poor even if he is materialistically wealthy. It is said to have been contributed somewhere between the years of 1628-1700.
An eye catching beauty to this area is Kyoyochi Pond which was man made in the 12th century. There's a small island that is connected from land by a small bridge. On the small island, which is barely big enough for 5 people to stand comfortably is a hidden temple where they house an image of Sarasvati. Julie was in love with this little island bridge and we walked all the way back round to check it out.
Otherwise, we just spent our time there walking around this captivating pond, taking pictures of things as they came and went.
The last place we visited on this day was yet another World Heritage Site, the old imperial palace called Ninnaji. This place was a massive area. Ninnaji was founded by the 59th emperor in year 842. It was the old imperial palace because years ago, emperors had lived here. It is now headquarters of a flower arranging school. The first place that we went to was the main temple. In this area, we walked around and inside one of the bigger temples we had seen.
The doors were all painted uniquely and were on display for tourists. On the outside of this main temple was another rock garden stretching towards the main gate that we had entered in. Opposite of that garden was a real green garden, beautiful, but unfortunately, we couldn't walk through it.
The rest of the complex was really large so we took our time going through it. The first stop we went to was to was a 5 story, wooden pagoda, followed by several other smaller buildings. These temple buildings were unique as some were brown with white trimmings and turquoise window shutters, others were bright red and white just standing up amongst natural colors surrounding it, others were brown with gold trim, not one looking the same. We walked around, some of the last tourists there as it closed to the public while we had entered before.
It was on this day that we learned that the temples all closed around 5-5:30 allowing us to plan our next day with that in mind. To be completely honest, I don't really remember what we did when the temple closed. I am sure we went and had dinner somewhere, but I can't remember exactly where or what we decided to do after. I just know that we went to bed early so we could get up early again to see more temples and shrines as effectively as our first day had gone.
1 comment:
i think this is the night that we went back and i tried on the kimono. We went back to the room and met the other girls from China who were very nice and then i passed out at like 9pm cause i was so tired.
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