My last day in Kyoto was not quite as templetastic as the day before, but was still pretty great! I first visited Daitoku-ji, which is a huge temple that has lots of subtemples. You could spend a lot more time there than I did (and I was there for quite a while), but I really enjoyed what I saw. I especially liked Daisen-in, which had a really fantastic zen garden, complete with really good explanation of what everything in it and the patterns in the sand meant. Super interesting! But no pictures allowed, sorry!After that, I headed to the Arashiyama area, which was where we visited the bamboo forest and monkey mountain before. I visited the big temple there, Tenryu-ji, which has a really lovely garden (and which is bordered by the bamboo forest). I also visited Nonomiya-jinja, which is a shrine in the bamboo forest. And then I ate matcha ice cream and bought souvenirs and headed back to Kyoto Station where I ate soup and bought more souvenirs and then got on the shinkansen and came home. It was a lovely, lovely, lovely vacation!
Enjoy five pictures of Tenryu-ji (the first and the last four) and six at Daitoku-ji.
And now, your moment of zen.
Thank you for the moment of zen - very nice!! Love the frogs - did you put any money in the water? And, what is up with the rocks with aprons? Do you know what they are? Such lovely sights you saw on your little vacation. Even though your feet must have been worn out, you must have felt very relaxed at the end of your trip. Everything was so beautiful and serene, how could you have been otherwise? :-)
ReplyDeleteI did throw money at the frogs - there was a certain spot to aim for, but I didn't quite make it. Boo. I'm not quite sure about the rocks with aprons - I think I know, but I don't want to spout it off and be wrong. I'll get back to you once I've double checked!
ReplyDeleteAnd I was very very relaxed at the end of my vacation! I could visit so many peaceful, happy places!
Okay, yeah, I've talked about them before. They're statues of Jizo, guardian of children (particularly unborn children or children who died before their parents).
ReplyDeleteOK, now I remember about those Jizo statues. You told me about them in an e-mail. On your May 1st blog entry you had a pic from Takao-san that showed some with red hats (they looked more like statues than rocks in that pic). You said that sometimes they had red bibs. So, I guess those aprons are really bibs. Interesting!!
ReplyDeleteI feel very relaxed, thanks to your zen moment. Thank you. :)
ReplyDeleteThe apron/bib statues are interesting - I like that they are guardians of children. Very cool. Looks like you had a super memorable vacation. Thanks for sharing it in so much detail!