Tim’s Ramblings

So, I have decided to break up the posts since I didn’t want to have you all download over a meg of images.

The first post will focus on Kinkaku-ji. The second will be Nijo-jo. The 3rd will be Kiyomizu-dera. 4th will probably just be random stuff. Not sure about #4 yet.

But due to the way blogs are posted…depending on when you read this, you may have already seen the other ones so this info is moot. Which makes my rambling here utterly useless…soooo….yeah. Oh, and I’ll toss in a bit of info and explanations but if you want the historical context of these places…well…there’s always wikipedia. (^_^) Off to the pictures!

Kinkaku-ji is actually named Rokuon-ji and was built in 1397. Yup. Now that’s history for you. Alas…the original temple was burned down. But it’s supposed to be a faithful reproduction. The gardens and the lakes are all original though as are the stone statues and such.

Alas, it’s also FULL of tourists but I managed to get a few shots that are devoid of people and shows how peaceful it could be. You’ll also notice that in most of my pictures, humans are nonexistant. I personally LOVE the architecture and the gardens and such so…yeah…my picts all tend to be quite lonely. But just know that behind me are probably a few hundred people (-_-)

Anyway, enough explanation. Here’s another shot of the temple.

Next up, these stone statues (or are these considered bas-relief? I seem to remember that from elementary school art…) were in about 2 different places and people were having fun trying to toss coins into the bowl. Not that easy as you can see from the mass of coins all around it. The 1yen coin is so light that a bit of wind will blow it off course and even a 10yen piece was hard. I guess it’s supposed to bring you luck or grant you a wish.

A shot of one of the 2 lakes behind the temple. The little island was nice.

And finally, one of many detail shots of the roof of temples. I really like the slope and the stone work of those Japanese temples. The intricate designs and how they overlap with eachother with such precision has always been interesting to me. I’ll try not to post too many of those though I took A LOT of pictures of this type.

That’s it for Kinkaku-ji. Next up (probably tomorrow morning for me) will be Nijo-jo.