Kyoto during Sakura Season - Part 4: Kiyomizu dera

Kiyomizu-dera is one of Japan's most popular sites and one of the most famous in Kyoto. It is an independent Buddhist temple of the Goddess of Mercy and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007. Kiyomizu means "Temple of Clear Water".

Kiyomizu-dera was founded in the early Heian period in 798 and is located halfway up the Otowa mountain. Since then, like many other buildings in Kyoto, it was burned down many times over the years. Its present buildings were rebuilt in 1633, by shogun Tokugama Iemitsu. A shogun is basically a high ranking general and pretty much ruled Japan back in those days.

The entrance of Kiyomizu-dera is the Deva gate and the 3 storey pagoda.

There were many MANY people also visiting Kiyomizu-dera that day. But look at all the pretty ladies in kimono. It is particularly beautiful when the sakura are in full bloom.

The best part of Kiyomizu-dera is the Main Hall, which has the large veranda that's supported by tall pillars that hangs over the hillside and offers amazing views of Kyoto. The 12m high keyaki pillars were built without a single nail and 410 cypress floor boards.

As we entered the hall, there was a crowd of people surrounding this area. It turned out it contained several metal objects, 1 pair of metal sandals and 2 metal rods. People were lining up to try and lift each object. The purpose of this is to demonstrate your strength and your worthiness of protecting the temple. Here's Matt's turn. He lifted the sandals and one of the 2 rods with 1 hand with ease, but could not lift the heaviest rod. People all around him were in awe when he lifted the lighter rod with 1 hand. We didn't see anyone else do that. Sugoi!

Picture of Matt and I on the veranda:

These pictures were taken from the other side of the mountain.

Views of Kyoto:

 

My turn at drinking the cleansing water using a ladle. How could I resist - the water came out of a dragon's mouth! It must be PURE.

 

Another popular site is the Otowa waterfall, where visitors can drink the water from a ladle. We chose not to do that, despite the fact the cups were sanitized by UV light. Right.

 

 

And finally, our trip to Kiyomizu-dera wouldn't be complete without visiting the little stone buddhas in their aprons: 



 

or the other 3 storey pagoda (that no one talks about):

 

 



An eventful day so far, but still not over yet. Ginkaku-Ji is next.

 

 

Kyoto during Sakura Season - Part 3: Fushimi Inari Taisha

The third part of the Kyoto series revolves around Fushimi Inari Taisha.

Welcome!

The Fushimi Inari Taisha is located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto and is the head shrine of Inari. Inari Okami was the Japanese Shinto god of rice and agriculture.  The shrine resides at the base of the Inari yama (mountain). Bright beautiful big orange shrine buildings.

Since Inari was also seen as the patron of business, each Japanese business over the years would donate a Torii, the big gates, to worship Inari in hopes of wealth and good business. So as you can see, the torii's line the footpaths up the mountain. The pathway wanders 4km up the mountain and it is said that there are 1300 torii gates. We found the torii's could be made of stone or wood. The back of each tori is engraved with the sponsor's name.

A fork in the road - which way?!

 

Path lined with never-ending torii gates:

 

And if get claustrophobic surrounded by so many orange torii gates and want to step out, you're out of luck. You are literally surrounded by a thick forest and very steep slopes.

But alas, we reached another shrine, nestled somewhere along the mountain. Here we can cleanse ourselves (like to sumo wrestlers) with some cleansing water using the cleansing ladle.

 

 

 

Drink up Matt. I'm sure it's DE-licious! I mean only millions of other people have drank from those ladles before you.

 



This is the entrance of the next rows of torii gates. The foxes next to the main gates serve as mystical messengers and often have a key (to the rice granary) in their mouths.

 

This time around, we walked through a small little bamboo forest. Pretty.

 

How did it get so dark, so quickly?!



 

After a nice long walk, time to have a little snack and eat tsujiira senbei. These are the original treats of what we know today as the fortune cookie, and dates back to at least the 19th century. Here's the guy who made our tsujiira senbei - yummy!:

 

 

 





Kyoto during Sakura Season - Part 2: Kinkakau-ji

In this 2nd part series of our weekend trip to Kyoto, we are going to explore Kinkaku-ji. According to the Lonely Planet travel books, the Kinkaku-ji temple, also known as the Golden Pavillion, is the 2nd most famous sight in Japan, just after Mount Fuji.

This temple is famous for it being covered in gold leaf in its top 2 stories. Also known as Rokuon-ji, this temple was originally built in 1397 as a retirement home to shogun Ashikaga Yoshi-mitsu. After his death, his son converted it to a Buddhist temple, complying to his father's wishes. The original temple only had the top storey covered in gold leaf and is set in the middle of a pond. It has a bronze phoenix on top of the roof. In 1950 a crazy monk decided to burn the place down and tried to commit suicide (unsuccessfully). Oddly enough, he was only sentenced to 7 years of prison. Anyway, the full reconstruction was completed in 1955 and followed the original design exactly except they decided to cover the top 2 stories of the temple with gold leaf.

All I can say is, Ashigkaga Yoshi-mitsu sure knows how to retire in style!

My, err I mean, Ashikaga's retirement home

The phoenix on top of the roof, symbolizing the imperial family.


Us with our future retirement home in the background. Everyone's welcome!

 The pond garden:

No retirement home is complete without its own waterfall!

It is said historically that Aishikaga (that's right, we're on first name basis) invented the tea ceremony and turned it into an art form. This is known to be the oldest tea room in all of Japan and all current tea rooms resemble this layout (and they do!).