Kyoto Temples - Daitoku-ji and Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion

Daitoku-ji, Kyoto

Needless to say, any city in Japan has a lot of temples, but a city as important and historic as Kyoto is positively overflowing with them. So there will be a few temples in our posts here. The good news, is some of these temples are really beautiful, so it's worth looking at the photos at least. Here are two of them.

Butsuden Hall, Daitoku-ji, Kyoto

Daitoku-ji is actually a big walled area with about 25 temples and many Zen gardens. It is the head temple of the Rinzai sect Daitokuji school of Zen Buddhism, founded in 1319. In the late 1400s, it became a centre of the tea ceremony.

Butsuden Hall, Daitoku-ji, Kyoto

One of the main buildings is the Butsuden Hall which, like most of the temples here, is usually closed to visitors, but you can at least see the outside, and get a glimpse in through the open doorway.

Daitoku-ji, Kyoto

Daisen-in, founded in 1509, has the oldest surviving example of a tokonoma, which is an alcove, with its surface raised slightly off the floor, for displaying flowers or ornaments.

It has some of the best regarded rock gardens, which are designed to depict a Chinese landscape, with rocks as mountains and islands, sand as the streams and waterfalls, and the white gravel as the ocean.



Totekiko, Ryogen-in, Kyoto

Ryogen-in is believed to be the oldest of the temples here, constructed by Tokei in 1502. It has some beautifully painted sliding doors, one with a very impressive but, I thought, quite old looking, dragon.

There are five landscaped gardens that are considered important Zen gardens, including:Totekiko, the smallest stone garden in Japan, which represents the ripples of a stone thrown into water



Ryogen-in Temple, Kyoto



Isshidan, Ryogen-in, Kyoto

Another is Isshidan, which is named after Ryozen-isshi-no-ken, which was a Zen master name given to Tokei after he correctly guessed a riddle set by his teacher, and there is Ryogintei, where the moss is water and the stone sticking up in the middle represents Shumisen, thought to be the core of the universe.



Ryugintei, Ryogen-in, Kyoto

Daitoku-ji, Kyoto



Daitoku-ji, Kyoto

Daitoku-ji, Kyoto

Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto

Our next stop is the rather beautiful Kinkaku-Ji, or the Golden Pavilion. The pavilion is a shariden, which is a Buddhist hall containing Buddha relics,and is said to represent the Pure Land of Buddha in this world.

Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto

It was built in the 1400s as a villa, by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the third Shogun of the Murumachi period. The top two levels are covered in gold foil over lacquer, and there is a rather majestic phoenix on top.



Sekkatei tea room, Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto

The separate teahouse is from the Edo period and is called Sekkatei, which means place of evening beauty.



Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto

When Yoshimitsu died, he stipulated that it should be turned into a temple. The conversion was done by Muso Kokushi, who also became the first abbot. The official name of the temple is Rokuon-ji, which comes from Rukuon-in-den, the name that Yoshimitsu was given for the next world.



Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto

Of course, as this temple is stunning to look at, it is very busy. Once again, it was hard to get to take photos without someone constantly posing in front of you. Thankfully, the lake meant that if you could manoeuvre into a position by the fence, you could get a great unobstructed view, but it made getting one of our occasional photos with both of us in, quite difficult.



Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto

Oh, and if you go, it is a one way system around it, so don't think you can come back for photos later.



Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto

Kyoto - Arashiyama and the Bamboo Grove

Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

One of the places that we were looking forward to seeing in Kyoto was the Bamboo Grove, so we hopped on a bus to Arashiyama, on the western outskirts. We decided to look at the temple first, in the hope that if we delayed our visit to the Bamboo Grove until lunchtime, there would be fewer people there.


Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

Tenryu-ji Temple, or the Temple of the Heavenly Dragon, was built as a Palace in 1255, by Emperor Kameyama. It was converted to a Zen temple in 1339 by Shogun Ashikaga Takauji, and dedicated to the recently deceased Emperor Go-Daigo, in the hope of appeasing his spirit after having turned against him in a battle for supremacy.



Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

The temple, like many places in Japan, was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, with the current structure dating from 1864, the Meiji period. The gardens however, remained largely as originally designed by Muso Soseki, who, as well as being a famous Zen garden designer, was also the first abbot of the temple.



Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

The gardens are very nice, with ryumon-baku waterfalls and landscaping intended to evoke the mountains. Personally I quite liked the mossy areas.



Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

Bamboo Grove, Kyoto

I don't know whether our plan to be at the Bamboo Grove at a quieter time worked, but in any case, it was still quite busy. In an effort to get a photo that looked like there was no one else there, I tried putting the camera on the longest shutter speed, but my little point and shoot only has a maximum four second exposure, so it didn't really work.


Bamboo Grove, Kyoto

On the point of people being in photos, why, why, why does it always seem to be the case that the people who persistently get in the way, also are the ones who wear the brightest possible coloured clothing? I can put up with someone wearing neutral colours, but a fluorescent pink jacket is never not going to detract from the subject.



Bamboo Grove, Kyoto

Anyway, photos aside, we were a bit disappointed with the Bamboo Grove. It was smaller than we had expected, and with all of the people around, it just didn't have that peaceful and tranquil feel that I think it needed.



Bamboo Grove, Kyoto

Back in the town, we had a wander around the shops, tried some of the unusual ice cream flavours - green tea, sweet potato and pumpkin - before heading home.


Bamboo Grove, Kyoto

Bamboo Grove, Kyoto

Houston - dinosaurs, butterflys and art (Throwback post)

Of course we didn't just drink and listen to music in Houston.  We were staying in the rather lovely Museum district, which logically enough is where the museums and galleries are.

We got along to the Museum of Natural Science and the Museum of Fine Arts for their free entry on Thursdays.

At the Science museum we had to pay to go into the butterfly house, but that was well worth it to see the multitude of beautiful butterflies in a great setting.







We also had to pay to get into the special exhibit, which was a showing of works by Faberge.  They were quite fabulous, with some of the famous eggs, and a large selection of his other pieces.

The museum itself, free after 3pm was excellent.  It had an amazing paleontology section, with a huge range of fossils and fossil replicas.  The great thing about it, aside from the sheer quantity of pieces, was the way that it was exhibited.

It was laid out in an interesting and easy to follow way, with the skeletons forming little tableaux, such as one dinosaur attacking the other, but alongside it would be a photographic representation of what this would have looked like with the landscape and the animals.

I really enjoyed it, and genuinely took an interest in reading the information, and that is often not the case.

We finished up with the fine arts, spending quite a bit of time in the Picasso exhibition.

Picasso is more Nic's thing than mine, but I was interested to seem broader range of work than I had expected, and there were even a  few that I actually quite liked.

The other visit was to the Rothko Chapel as we had heard it was a major thing to see.  Apparently the chapel, built by the Menils, was specifically designed to take a number of huge pieces of art by Mark Rothko, and is a multi-denominational chapel dedicated to peaceful meditation.

Were we impressed?  No. Definitely not.  For a start, I'm afraid I just don't appreciate art when it is something I could do myself.

These huge paintings were basically just grey/black with a hint of purple edging.  They supposedly have subtleties and nuances of colour, but it is entirely lost on me; I thought they looked dull, dreary, and demonstrated no discernible talent.

But perhaps I could have forgiven the disappointing art had the chapel itself made me feel peaceful and meditative.  It didn't.

It feels like a concrete bunker.  It is cold, and when we were there we noticed a distinct odor of urine.  We tried our hardest to be reflective and to understand what other people see in the place, but to no avail; we couldn't get out of there fast enough.

The one thing we did like there was the mirror pond outside, with the broken obelisk sculpture in memory of Dr Martin Luther king Jr.  That was far nicer, and with the reflecting water and the trees surrounding it, far more conducive to meditation and contemplation.

Near to the Chapel was the Menin Collection, which had some interesting art and installations.  The one that stood out for us was an installation about a collection being made in Benin for the 'poor white westerners, because we don't look after our own'.  As you can imagine, the general opinion was that this was the wrong way around, as it should be the rich west giving to the poor of africa.

Most locals initially were reluctant to give, especially those who seemed best off, but in fact they all did.  Some were actually shocked to hear that there was such a thing as a poor white person.  We found it fascinating, a little sad that the view of rich white westerners is so entrenched, and just a little humbling that people who had so little we prepared to give some to us.

Overall we were more impressed with Houston than people's reactions led us to expect.  We were a bit disappointed that it was too much of a hassle to make the journey out to the space centre on public transport, as we both secretly wanted to say 'Houston, we have a problem' but that is not unusual for the States and we will go there another time when we can take a car.

Houston is never likely to be a top destination, but is a great place for a few days and the Museum of Natural Science was excellent.