I've really fallen behind on my blogging here...
But, better late than never. So here we go - day 2. And I have to warn you that there will be
plenty of pictures in this post...
After a night of uninterrupted sleep(!), which is something that is not happening that often when I'm jet-lagged, it was up bright and early to make sure I had enough time to get around the place and find me some temples.
It turned out it took much longer to get to the temples than I'd first anticipated. But still, I managed a hand-full, with gardens and shrines as well. I started in the south east and my intention was to work my way up north. Well. I got halfway up during the day, and then I returned to the Ryokan with tired legs - I could have visited another one or two temples, but I don't think I would have appreciated them as much as just ticking them off the TODO-list.
My first stop was the
Kiyomizu temple. I did not take that many pictures there, sorry for that. The reason - it's nice, but not really that photogenic at this time of year
(another week with full autumn colors would have been stunning).
Some shrine hidden in there behind all the highschoolers... I did not stand in line to visit it, but it was probably good for your studies, boy/girl-problems, WoW raids or whatever it is young kids pray to good fortune in these days.
Maintenance work or ninjas? ;-)
I probably missed some part of the temple grounds now that I look through the material I got. But right then and there, all I could see was Japanese information, a complete lack of English guide material and 4711 high-school kids swarming in over the area... So I left after wandering through the main path.
When leaving the temple I turned down one of the side-streets into an area of Kyoto that has been "historically preserved". A nice stroll. I was probably out too early, not many of the shops along the way had opened yet.
Somewhere almost at the end of this path I turned right and headed up a long flight of stairs to visit the
Kodaiji temple. A really nice little temple hidden off the beaten path. No signs led up to it and it was not marked on the Lonely Planet maps! If it wasn't for the Japan Guide forum I wouldn't have found it, and it was a really nice little temple. The garden was serene and there were not a lot of tourists around, of course - being off the beaten path meant that there was no information in English. Ah well. A beautiful garden is a beautiful garden, in whatever language it is described on paper...
Having walked and gawked for almost four hours by this time, I headed out to the
Maruyama park for a quick bite of the lunch I'd brought with me and a short break on a bench to let my feet catch some rest. Adjacent to the park is the Yasaka shrine
(also known as Gijon shrine) so I took a walk through the grounds before heading on towards the next temple.
Having refreshed myself with food, drink and rest, I headed up to the
Chionin temple. This is the head temple of the Judo sect. It is
HUGE and it's spread out over quite extensive temple grounds. Unfortunately, there are renovations ongoing, so parts of the area was impossible to reach. And among those parts that could not be reached was two of the gardens. Darn... Ah well. I walked around trying to get to them for quite a long time (an hour?) before I realized it was impossible. Anyway, I was able to enter one of the zen gardens and I had the opportunity to look like a lost tourist and trying to make myself understood in a mix of Japanese, English and a lot of flapping of arms when I found that I have wandered into the private parts of the temple grounds and was in the middle of the living quarters. Heh. Interesting. And the only monk I ran in to couldn't speak a word English...
And after having been lost at Chionin for a while I then found my way over to the last of the temples visited on this day. The
Shorenin temple. A small but nice temple. Again a place with not many tourists, but I was beginning to feel a little saturated with temples and after leaving this temple I decided that some hot food and a nice cup of tea was what the doctor ordered. So, last suite of pictures for this day.
...and there is more coming...
I'll try to catch up on the last day tomorrow or perhaps during the weekend. I really should be doing the posting "as it happens" and not a week or two later.
