Japan The Beautiful and the Horrendous

The rest of our days in Kyoto fell into a similar routine, although when we discovered dragon ceilings, we made a point of hunting out those temples.  We always started with one site we really wanted to explore; today's was Kinkakuji.

We had avoided the golden temple, Kinkakuji as reviews said it is a gorgeous crowded nightmare.  In the end we had to go.  It is a Zen Buddhist temple whose top two floors are covered in gold leaf. It dates from 1399 and seems to have survived intact until 1950 when a novice monk set it afire in a suicide attempt. It was rebuilt in 1955. The gold is supposed to mitigate any negative feelings towards death. What happened to the monk you may ask, he was sentenced to seven years in prison, and died shortly after his early release from tuberculosis.   

And it turned out to be fabulous!!!  We loved it. Where it is crowded is getting in and back to the street. But it has a large and well trained staff who keep things moving. Inside the grounds, it is lovely, amazing, beautiful. Yep, we loved it. 

What is not to love.

After that all my plans for the day exploded as we got on the wrong bus, so we explored other things. 

We realized our mistake in front of the Ninna ji Temple so in we went. One of the most holy shrines was open. This only happens for about a month every year. We contemplated not going in, as the explanation would only be in Japanese, but thought, hey we have technology. I used my airpods translate and Bob used google translate. Neither got an A. I would rate the airpods as a C- and the google translate as a C. Either that or most of the explanation had something to do with cell phones back in the 1500s. It really didn’t matter as we had a booklet with some details in English, and the Buddha and Bostivistas were really interesting. Unfortunately, you will only get a brochure photo as no photos allowed. We also saw our first Zen rock garden.

The brochure photo

Then we headed to the Ryoan ji zen rock garden. Yep, the whole thing is 15 small to mid sized rocks in a field of raked gravel. It is the most famous rock garden in all of Japan, which probably means it is the most famous rock garden in the world. There is disagreement about who made it and when and what the meaning is. What is certain is you can’t see all 15 rocks at once, one is always hidden. We enjoyed it even if we couldn’t explain it.   We also had our first dragon paintings.  They were on wall panels.  They fascinated us.  They are  a

depiction of the guardian deity of Buddhism.

It is lovely.  

We weren't the only ones captivated

There be dragons

Myoshinji was our first dragon ceiling and probably a good one to start with.  The dragon seemed to either be flying towards you or speeding away from you depending on our location in the room.  We spent a good deal of time looking at it from different locations.  The dragon painting at Myoshinji Temple is called “Unryuzu” Dragon in the Clouds and was created by the painter Kano Tanyu in the early Edo period. 

Picture of the brochure

Then onto a bus to slowly make our way back. We returned to a protest. Yes, people had signs and were marching and chanting slogans. It seemed to be no nukes. Seems a fitting entrance to our trip to Hiroshima tomorrow. Unlike US protests, this was very orderly. It fact, the police turned all signals to red when the protesters got to an intersection to keep traffic and random pedestrians from inferring by crossing the road in the middle. They also made sure everyone was keeping up including those with canes, and would hold the line to allow the slow to catch back up. It was rather civilized, no helmets, no riot gear, no guns.

Hiroshima was another bullet train trip. Our first stop was the Peace Park Museum. As expected it was packed, more from poor building layout than number of visitors. They have a number of preserved items from victims and survivors and stories. As expected it was a moving experience of a horrific event.   A must do for everyone.

To contemplate and clear our minds, we took a boat to Miyajima Island and its famous Tori gate.  First installed in 1168, the six pillar style was adopted in 1547. It has been rebuilt eight times over the years.  At high tide it seems to float on the water, at low tide you can walk to it. 

We finished with a peek at Hiroshima Castle before dinner and the train for the hour and a half journey. 

Very cool manhole cover

And speaking of cool manhole covers, there is a Facebook group that posts only photos of Japanese manhole covers.  Who knew.

One woman only collects "man" hole covers.  

And there are people who collect cards of the manhole covers, and then go to the manhole covers with their cards to have their pictures taken, and have scrap books of manhole cover cards.  I guess there is a hobby for everyone.

Japan Plum Blossoms and Strange Statues

Our tourist days were beginning to focus on plum blossoms and every night I tried to figure out where they might be blooming.  Hence, Kitano Tenmangu Shrine. 

They had a special part of the garden set aside for the plum trees, which we sorted out after we arrived.  As it opened a bit later we entertained ourselves with the sword display.  But really, the plum trees were the highlight.  As part of your entrance fee, you got to try plum tea and special plum cookies.  I was thinking yum.  Boy howdy was I wrong.  The tea was a gross salty mixture and the cookies beyond boring.  The Japanese were a great deal more enthusiastic about them than we were.

Gross salty nasty tea

Boring cookie

Happiness

They put strings of shiny baubles in some of the trees.  No idea why.

I had planned to visit a few sites that were a bit different than the others.  Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple was certainly that.  Originally created in 766 it was destroyed by natural disasters repeatedly even though it had a statue installed that protects against bad luck.  Odd that. It is almost like it didn’t work or something. In 1955 a Buddhist monk and statue sculptor took over, and in ten years he and his followers created 1200 individualized statues representing themselves and others. Yep, each person carves their own image as they want to be seen.   Completely different. Who knows what the temple is supposed to accomplish for the worshipers. 

Bonsia blooming plum tree

Adashino Nenbutsuji Temple contains 8000 pagodas commemorating those that died without kin.  In August they have thousands of candles to illuminate the images.  This started in the Meiji era, late 1800's.

Some of the many pagodas

Raccoon dogs were present throughout our stay mainly in front of people's home.  This one at the temple was rather sports oriented.  

What it all means

Wandering through Gioji Temple's moss covered garden was peaceful. It was entertaining watching a gardener sweep the dead leaves off the moss to keep it looking nice. Something us old folks could do. 

Keeping the moss looking good

Traveling further we went to Daikakuji Temple which had a nice bamboo forest, plum trees and wall paintings we could photograph.  Most temples have the wall paintings, but photography is often prohibited.

Bamboo and a bench to rest on.  Delightful.