Kyoto - Day Two
The Milky Way Spring, Ginga-sen
A variation on the wishing well. If you can toss your coin into the stone bowl in the center, your prayer will be answered.
The path takes a sharp jog around this bowl, so from the back side, here is a view of Josh trying his hand at the toss. I have to say that there is a certain attraction to donating when there is an element of chance.
After the offering bowl, we started to climb
And climb
And climb
Part way up our climb we could see the An-min-taku pond
Looking back at the way we had come
We continue our climb
Looking back at the Golden Pavilion
The third floor of the Golden Pavilion is built in the style of a Zen temple and is known as the Kukkyôchô ("Superb Apex"). Inside is sheltered an Amida triad and 25 Bodhisattvas.
Josh notes a centipede crawling among the loam.
And now our walk levels out and we stroll along the rear of the Rokuon-ji Temple
We approach the Sekka-tei Tea House
We pass a small shrine
The Fudo-do Hall, dedicated to the fire deity, Fudô Myôô (Acala)
Having finished with our tour, we start the long trip down.
and down
On our way to the bus stop, we pass a small souvenir stand
Because we were using the bus system, we were able to dictate our own schedule
Traveling along the north side of Kyoto along the Imadegawa Dori street on our way to our third stop of the day.
Looking south as we pass the Kamo River (Kamogawa).
Looking north on the Kamo River. Note that the river splits in two here and, visible through the bridge rails, are large stepping stones that allow pedestrians to cross the river.
After we got off the bus, we started our long walk to the next temple
Although we found a shady walk, it was still brutally hot.
The bus dropped us off several blocks from the temple, so we were looking at a walk of about a half mile to get to our destination.
Fortunately, part of the walk took us among many shops and souvenir stands.
We've been walking for about 10 minutes now.
The little street leading up to the temple starts to get crowded
Notice the Disney on Tour sign :)
15 minutes since we got off the bus and we are almost to the temple.
For our third stop, we had decided on the Ginkakuji (Silver) Temple.
This is an overview of the main part of our visit to the Ginkakuji Temple. In total, we ended up walking about 1.5 miles, a half mile each way between the bus stop and the temple and a half mile walking the temple grounds.
A look back at the shops as we step into the temple entrance.
A brief view of the initial part of our walk. Initially we traveled along this 165 foot (50 meter) pathway between the main gate and the inner gate lined with a distinctive type of bamboo fencing.
Josh takes a few photos of the various aspects of the sand garden (called karesansui).
The rocks symbolize mountains in this miniaturized landscape.
Think of the scrubs as vast forests.
Unfortunately, the Silver Pavilion itself was under renovation
A sign next to the temple gives us an idea of how it should look.
The Hôjô is the main temple building (Hondô) of Ginkaku-ji and dates to the mid-Edo period
As we walk, we see a small shrine off to one side.
This is the Kôgetsudai, the Moon-Viewing Platform. The idea here is that an observer would sit on this mound while waiting for the moon to rise from the Higashiyama mountains.
The Sea of Silver Sand (Ginshadan) would reflect the light of the moon as one watched the moon rise while sitting on the top of Moon Viewing Platform.
Another view of the Sea of Silver Sand
On the other side of the walkway, this little rock garden separated two buildings.
we finally see one of the cicada, that we hear chirping almost everywhere we go.
A little herb garden, with plants likely used for landscaping in the rock gardens.