Kyoto: Day 2

I started the second day off walking towards Gion (Geisha district), my aim being to get to Nazenji Temple.  You walk through Gion, through the grounds of Yasaka shrine, and then if you play your cards right, you find Nazenji.

By now I've walked through Yasaka, and I'm walking through the grounds of another temple called Sorenji.

Now I'm walking through Chorakuji.  Lots of temples.

Next to the Chorakuji grounds is a private cemetery which I couldn't enter.   It was the most breathtaking cemetery I'd ever seen. I sat outside of it and just stared for a while.

 

When I was initially looking for places to visit on my laptop, I was on Google Maps and I saw this.  But there was no label as to what it was, so I mistook it for the biggest, strangest parking lot in the middle of nowhere that I'd ever seen.  So seeing it in person answered some questions.

All of these places have old fashioned fountains with bamboo ladles so you can wash your hands or get a drink.  This one was a bit more decked than the typical ones you'd see

By this time I was sure I must have reached Nazenji, because I knew it had a Sanmon (3 gates) structure.  But I was wrong.  This is Chion!  I actually came back to this spot a few times.  One time I even went back and sat in on a Shinto worship session.  A very enlightening 30 minutes, the monk's chanting was amazing.

The sanmon at Nazenji was about as big as this one too. You could go up on the balcony if you wanted!

Chion had some Rambo stairs.  They were pretty intense, not to mention steep.

The funny thing is that there was an alternate easier route to go up to the temple structure, RIGHT NEXT TO THESE STAIRS.  But I noticed that there's something called a path of worship.  You have to walk on a specific route in order to properly complete your worshiping. That's the best reason I can think of for why this poor elderly woman is climbing away.

There were a few structures that are closed for restoration.  This one at Chion had to be the largest structure being worked on.  I read that it will be finished sometime in 2019. They built a complete structure over it to protect it during restoration. Incredible!

I always stopped and admired when I saw this happen.  They either brace from below or hook up some support from above so that the branches don't break off from all the weight.

Have you been to the Pavilion Court?
"...what better place to court pavilions!"

This was a HUGE tree outside of Shoren-in.  See how that one branch in particular is braced from below AND above? Cool.

I really liked the rooftops.  I took a ton of roof pics, I'm not going to post them all though.

I found a brand of Bikes called Cabbage.  I've decided to name my bike Cabbage because of it.

Ah.  The master Shinto.  That thing is HUGE.  Look how big the cars are at it's feet.  It was close to the entrance to a Heian Shrine.  I never did get back there to the Heian Shrine, but I did walk up to this to see just how big it was. I ended up getting distracted with the Kyoto zoo.

I wondered what kinds of differences I'd see in another country's zoo, and I happened to be passing by.  Hmm the notable differences are the enclosure sizes (way too small), and how close the animals were to us (I was 2-3 ft away from this guy.)

And may I just say that seeing a baboon in real life is more terrifying than any insect, snake, or any other scary animal?  This guy scared me to death, and he wasn't even screaming or anything. 

I felt like the animals had pretty crappy enclosures, especially the elephant.  Poor guy.  He seemed pretty happy when I took this photo.  I got to see some animals I'd never seen in real life before, but all in all I was pretty depressed with the conditions I saw at the zoo.

There was a really strange statue next to the zoo.  I'd like to figure out what the heck it is portraying.

AH! NAZENJI!!!

I loved the moss covered grounds.  I think moss is beautiful.

Nazenji had one of it's structures getting restored too.

I decided to climb the balcony on the gate at Nazenji.  The stairs were very steep, you had to take your shoes off, but it was amazing!

I got to checkout the tiles.  I thought they were so cool.

The gates still have their bells attached!

Nazenji was initially a palace before it was donated to be a temple, so it had a palace you could pay to wander in.  This is one of it's rock gardens.  Honestly I think it's ten times cooler in real life.  The nature throughout the palace was a work of art.

You didn't have shoes on, you could drink all the green tea you wished, and you could sit down and relax in an amazing, beautiful, ancient palace.  There were barely any people checking it out, so I had a lot of it to myself.  It was awesome.

I love these porches. LOVED THEM!!!

Nazenji and Eikando temples had my favorite gardens to wander through.

Nazenji also has an aqueduct that is still used regularly.  COOL!

Heeeellllu.

I wandered.  All over the place.  I found my way up to the top of the aqueduct.  You could walk all along the top of it actually.  They trust people to be respectful, and it seems to work out nicely.

This was the monk-emperor's personal palace garden. It was gorgeous of course.  They said that part of that emperor's ashes were buried in a small shrine in the forest somewhere beyond this garden.

K so I was checking out a baby pagoda I saw poking it's head out of the forest canopy, when I saw this tourist person walking towards the pagoda from this path.  And I'm all for mountain paths, so I decided to check it out.

Turns out it let to a spot where you could see part of the emperor's shrine.  HOW INSANE IS THAT.  (Jack, I was listening to lots of music while exploring.  I swear on my life that 5 seconds before I spotted this, music from Skyrim came on.  I felt like I'd just entered a Skyrim game or something ha ha ha.  Doesn't this photo just look like it could be out of that game?)  It was a cool moment for me.

Don't the Nazenji gates just LOOM?  So huge.  Cool.

Eikando!!! I LOOOOOOVED Eikando.  It's my dream home. Funnily enough I hadn't planned on going there at all.  I was walking to a place called the Philosopher's Path, when I happened to see a cute little path.  I randomly decided to wander for a bit, and it let me to Eikando. Eikando has an awesome story to it. Not to mention it had some beautiful architecture.

So Eikando Zenrinji is where the Amida Buddha statue is kept.  I did lots of reading about the Amida Buddha, and it's a cool little tale about Buddhism and religion and such.

I had so much fun wandering (shoes off still) throughout the temple.

I've never seen a goldfish that actually looked GOLD before.

This used to be the messenger gate.

Did I mention how much fun I had wandering about?

The floors were so smooth.  They aren't waxed, but you weren't worried about splinters or anything either.

I found another baby pagoda, and it had an awesome view.

I was exhausted by now, but I'd taken so many detours from my original destination, that I was DETERMINED to get to that blasted Philosopher's Path.  It did not disappoint.

It's funny, the first thing I thought of when I started walking along it was, "This reminds me of that path Tasha gets to walk by near her house."

The path is right up next to the mountains.  If you look away from the mountains, you can see a mausoleum that holds one of the previous emperors.

The path was not a place with shops or anything.  It was completely quiet and nice.  Near the beginning though, there was a quiet tea house that had this weird carriage suspended outside it, with all these cats just chilling.  How interesting.

By the time I got back to Yasaka Shrine, the lanterns were getting lit up.

Here I am exiting the Shrine area, opening up to Shijo street.

This is Teramachi, where they have tons of little shops with clothes, gifts, and food. Once 8pm rolls around, shops close up pretty quickly.  How strange is that?

Do they have these in America?  Like an ice cream cone sandwich.  LOVED IT.

Walking back to my hotel.