Hello!
It seems such a long time ago – our first day in Japan with my parents! The travel the day before had been such a long one. Early out of Melbourne, up to Cairns, breakfast and tour with friends, flight out to Osaka, train to Kyoto, car to accommodation!
Amazingly we were quite ready the next day to poke our noses out of the house and go and see something!
Kinkaku ji (The Golden Pavilion) wasn’t far away so it seemed a good place to start.
Not more than five minutes up the path and my parents were accosted by a group of Japanese school children who sought to practice their English on unsuspecting tourists! Its great fun. The kids are cute and try their best.
After two such groups, we eventually extracted ourselves and got into the temple grounds
Kinkaku ji – officially named Rokuon ji (Which translates as Deer Garden Temple) – really is quite a sight.
Lovely reflections in the ponds where the top two stories that are covered in gold leaf really stand out.
The site was originally a villa called Kitayama Dai. Its history dates back to 1397 when the villa was bought by one of the Shoguns and was then transformed into the Kinkaku ji complex and later the building converted into a zen temple
During the Onin war (1467 -1477) (mad dates from so long ago!!) most of the complex (aside from the pavilion) was burnt down
On July 2, 1950, at 2:30 am, (so precise!!) the pavilion was burned down by a 22-year-old novice monk and the current building dates from 1955.
Even though its one of the most popular places for tourists to go and it does get crowded, its actually not too bad. The temple is over the water so as you walk around you get good views without someone being in your way all the time.
The mossy gardens are lovely and the path leads everyone in past the pavilion then around the gardens and out (via a few souvenir shops haha)
So people keep moving and there didn’t seem to be a glut.
I’d still recommend go to these places as early as possible to beat the tour buses!
Small waterfalls and waterways crisscross the gardens
I love the stone lanterns and rock water basins
It was a bit early in the month, but there were some autumn colours starting to show
Jeff – always waiting for the photographer!
It was a nice way to start our holiday!
Cheers!
Beautiful! Wonderful day! Thanks for sharing; can’t wait for more!
Thank-you Teri… it was nice to finally go back and start looking at photos! I hope to get into some more soon! 🙂