It is now Saturday, April 18th, 7:20 pm.
On Thursday, we went to some of the Karesansui (or dry landscape) Gardens in Northwestern Kyoto. We first went to a head Zen temple called Daitokuji. An interesting point about most Zen temples is the fact that they have sub-temples. The sub-temples, for all intensive purposes, function independently but are dependent on the generosity of the main temple for land and for protection in earlier times.
Daisen-in was my favorite of these temples, and not simply because its garden is the most famous. I thought the grounds were designed very holistically, to tell a metaphoric story about how to live a virtuous and zen life. There are about 4 seperate gardens that are linked together by a story. They depict, by means of raked sand and stones, a stream flowing towards the ocean. Within this stream there are creatures, represented in stone, swimming against the currents, trying to stay young forever, but of course we must all one day to go "the great ocean". Along the path, on the side of this stream there are mountains and waterfalls created using only relatively small stones, plants and sand. It is amazing how beautiful the compositions were, and though I don't know how historically accurate the story we were told is, I liked it none the less.
Another sub-temple of Daisen-in that we visited was Obai-in, which was amazingly beautiful. It has a large moss garden, in addition to an austere rock garden, and it houses multiple buildings with beautiful woodwork and craftsmanship.We also saw Kohrin-in, with it's beautiful dry garden. Both of these sub-temples are only open during a certain period in the fall, and one in the spring, so we were lucky to get to go.
Unfortunately, pictures were limited in all of these places, but I will post what I can.
Later in the day, we went to Rokoun-ji Temple and the Golden Pavilion, which lives up to its name. The pavilion literally gleams with gold leaf. It is set in the middle of a lake, so its light is reflected and creates quite a site. Of course it was crowded with tourists, many of whom were eager to get pictures with some of our english-speaking group. We walked through the grounds and glanced at the small shrines, and there will be many pictures up soon.
Our last stop of the day was at Ryoanji. If you are an architecture student, and don't know what Ryoanji is, you should change majors. For those of you who are not architecture students, Ryoanji is arguably the most famous dry garden in Japan. This small garden was one of the major things I was most excited to see in Japan. The simple composition of sand and stone seemed so pure and beautiful in the pictures in my architectural history class. Ryoanji was a huge disappointment for me, and it has nothing to do with the composition of the garden. The temple was, unfortunately, under construction. So, instead of viewing the garden from the wooden engawa that surrounds the interior spaces, we saw it from scaffolding that extended out over a good portion of the garden, darkening the view. The rock compositions were still visible, but the perspective and scene was all off because it was designed to be seen from a different point. There were hoards of school children being incredibly loud and people talking on the phone as well. Overall, the experience of it was somewhat ruined for me, and I was incredibly disappointed. I may have to make another trip to Japan some time in my life because I didn't get to see Ryoanji the way it was meant to be seen. Maybe that's being a little overly dramatic, but I honestly think I might have preferred that they just had the temple closed during the renovations, so as to leave my high opinion of the garden untainted.
So, that was my "class" on Thursday. Friday was a normal day of Japanese and studio classes. Jeff and I spent a couple hours on Thursday night figuring out the structure and basic diagram for the facade of our building, but we're not really spending too much time or energy on this project as of now. We got good feedback on what we have, so I think we're close to being done with design, we just need to start production.
After class, Jeff and I had a plan to go see about 4 things. We made it to one of them (the Kyoto Handicrafts Center) and then realized that it was past 4, and that most of the temples would close at 5. I was a little discouraged because there's still so much I want to see in Kyoto and this is my last weekend to do it. To minimize our disappointment, we bought some beers and drank them on the way home (which is totally legal to do out in the streets here, by the way).
The rest of the group went out to eat raw horse (yuck!)and Trudy and I went back to that Italian place we went a few nights ago. It was really good, but we got lost in Kyoto Station trying to find it.
Today was finally Saturday, and Jeff and I had some catching up to do. We actually made it to our appointment this time at Shugakuin at 9 am, so we got to see the detached palace. The grounds are much bigger than those at Katsura, but I thought the design was a little lacking. Most of the buildings were larger and more impressive, but the gardens and grounds, though they were expansive and beautiful, almost lacked a certain unity. What was most interesting to me was the fact that there were farm lands and rice paddies within the compound. There are three parts to Shugakuin, the Lower, Middle and Upper Villas. Shugakuin was built for the retired Emperor Gomizuno as a retreat for him to come visit. The buildings served as his resting areas (in the Lower Villa), the residence and villa of Princess Akenomiya (in the Middle Villa) and as the retired Emperor's teahouse and space to read poetry (in the Upper Villa).
The complex was originally just the Lower and Upper Villas, with the Middle Villa being added later (around 1668). The most impressive part of Shugakuin were the views from the Upper Villa. When you reach the Rinuntei and progress on to the Kyusuitei (the tea house), Yorkuryuchi Pond extends out below you. A scene of the garden with all its foliage stretches out, with a view of the mountains and the center of Kyoto looming behind. It is as if Kyoto, and maybe even Japan as a whole, with all its beauty has been condensed into one view. The pond itself is almost breath-taking as you walk around it, but the view of it from the tea house is unrivaled. Katsura could never compete with such views, but in my opinion, the experience of walking through the small garden had a much richer meaning than the tour through the impressive grounds of Shugakuin.
Of course, Jeff and I had to make up for not seeing anything last night, so after Shugakuin, we headed out on our journey. Our first stop was a temple called Kiyomizudera, which means (roughly) Temple of the Purified/Sacred Water. It was a bit of a tourist trap, especially towards the top where the pagoda and main building are. We paid our entrance fee of 300 yen and walked through the grounds with our new friends from London that we made along the way. They were looking at a map and seemed lost, so we stopped in the street to help them and it turned out they were headed for the temple we were on our way to, so they walked with us. We lost them somewhere along the way because we were not as interested in the interior of the temple as we were the exterior structure. Kiyomizudera is built on top of a large hill, and so there is elaborate wooden structure supporting it from the bottom.
We continued around the grounds, found some good views of the structure and finally came upon the fresh water spring that gave the temple its name. There was a line to drink the holy water of the spring, and Jeff and I ended up paying 200 yen for "holy water bowls" to drink from. These weren't required, and are a little kitschy, but we thought they were decent souvenirs. We drank the water, and then figured out our route to our next destination: Sanjusangendo.
Sanjusangendo is not a large temple, nor is its architecture very fascinating. Yet, Jeff and I probably spent an hour inside. That's because it houses 1001 hand carved religious statues. Now, pictures were not allowed, but of course Jeff and I snuck a few, so I will eventually put them up. The sheer number and detail of the statues was amazing, and kept us in awe as we slowly made our way through the temple, reading the explanations of the different Buddhist gods.
By the time we left Sanjusangendo, it was after 2 pm. We decided to get lunch at a McDonald's because it was convenient. After being gawked at by some local boys for about half an hour, we finished our lunch, waved goodbye to them (which made them laugh and tease and talk more) we headed to what would turn out to be our last stop of the day.
There were 3 other temples that we were planning to visit today; just stopping by them quickly. We ended up going to Fushimi-Inari Taisha Shrine first because it was the farthest away from our appartment and we were planning on walking back. We didn't know that this was the place with hundreds and hundreds of Torrey Gates. We ended up walking through the massive complex of Torrey Gates for about an hour or two. The path turned out to be quite a hike and the massive number of bright orange gates was astounding. About halfway through, the hike turned into simple exercise and the gates lost their novelty. It was a good experience though and we're both glad we did it.
So that's it...all caught up after reading that huge novel. Sorry about that, but a lot has happened over the past few days. Tomorrow there are a few temples I'd like to visit, but I doubt I'll be able to see everything I want to in Kyoto before we leave next Saturday morning. I can't believe that I've already been here almost a month, and yet it feels longer than that at the same time. I still have a bit of work to do this weekend as well, but hopefully I'll be able to write again tomorrow so you don't ever have to read this much in one sitting again.
Until then.
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