In my last post I showed some photos of some of the places we visited in central Kyoto. For this post I’ve separated out excursions that were a little further afield, sometimes very little.
Fushimi Inari Taisha Shinto Shrine, for example, was only about 6km south of our hotel. This is where we took my Dad for his second full day in Japan, still a bit jet-lagged. The walk up the hill through the 1000 torii gates ended up being a bit challenging.
We had been warned that the main temple would be very crowded,
but that the crowds would thin out once we started up through the gates.
Certainly not right away, but it turned out to be (more or less) true.
It was kind of a weird excursion. You don’t get much of a view, mostly just shrines and torii gates and often many people.
My Dad wandered off into the bamboo to get a little nature.
We took an alternate route down and ended up at one of my favorite temples in Kyoto, the Zen Buddhist Tofuku-ji, mostly built during the 14th century Muromachi Period.
Because Japanese dragons exhale water, they’re often painted on wooden ceilings to protect the buildings from fire.
The highlight was the four gardens, one on each side of the hojo, with symbols representing the eight aspects of Buddha’s life.
Another excursion that was still in the Kyoto city limits was to Arashiyama. The area is famous for its bamboo groves, popular with all kinds of tourists.
We visited a few temples on a surprisingly quiet side street.
The main attraction is the garden at Tenryu-ji Temple. Indeed it’s on UNESCO’s list.
On the hill above the temple is more bamboo,
and if you go a little higher, you can see that you really are on the edge of Kyoto.
We dove into a restaurant to get out of the rain, and I enjoyed this yummy tofu set for lunch.
If you’re headed this way, you might want to make reservations at the temple restaurant. It was fully booked a couple weeks out when we were there in November. Our place (at 35.01368° N, 135.67775° E) was also good for about half the price. The three of us got a table after a 10-minute wait.
Further afield we went one morning by bus to the Miho Museum. Seemingly bottomless deep pockets spent huge money to build this museum up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. The architect was I. M. Pei, the same one who did the Mesa Library at NCAR in Boulder, another inconvenient-to-access building surrounded by protected land. Neither should have been built.
What about the collection? You can’t take photos so I don’t have any. I thought the pieces were excellent. My Dad thought you could see similar treasures in the various museums of southern California.
Highlights for me were a 1st century colorful Roman fresco, a 4000-year-old carved wooden Egyptian statue of a human, a collection of painted bowls from 13th century Iran, and perhaps my favorite — a set of marble carvings from 6th century China which included horses, an ox cart, an elephant, a camel.
A couple more photos of the grounds:
Nara, of course, should be your list. I was looking forward to (again) seeing the oldest wooden buildings in world, but, alas, Horyuji wasn’t on our itinerary. Instead we focused on Todai-ji, one of the largest wooden buildings in the world.
Todai-ji houses the largest bronze Buddha in the world, cast over three years in the middle of the 8th century.
The building, of course, isn’t that old. It burned down twice. The one we’re seeing is from 1709 (Tokugawa Period).
I found this garden nearby,
and of course there are the famous Nara deer.
Lunch that day was another yummy bento.
A bit closer to Kyoto, in Uji we visited Byodo-in Temple, built as a private house in the 11th century. Wow, this place is a looker, so much so (I guess) that it features on the 10 jpy coin.
With reservations you can get inside and see reproductions of the artwork. The originals are in the good onsite museum.
Whew. There’s still lots more to see in and around Kyoto, but that’s all for now. Time to head west and see something new.