Philosophers, Temples, Castles and Monkeys

So...the last time I wrote was on Friday and it's now Monday night at 10:30...so I'm a terrible person...yeah, get over it.

This weekend was really eventful. Saturday we went on the Philosopher's Walk. This is a beautiful stroll along a small canal, lined with cherry blossoms. We started at the Silver Pavillion in Jishôji, in southern Kyoto. The Pavilion itself is under renovation, but the grounds were still beautiful. The rock and sand displays were meticulously maintained and I was impressed by their subtle details within simple forms.

Tôgundô is another building in the compound, dating from the mid-1400s. It is the earliest example of shoin style architecture in existence. The techniques and stylistic development in this building drastically influenced future buildings of its type.

We also visited Hônen-in and Anrakuji, which are just off the Philosopher's Path. These are two temple complexes , with beautiful gardens. We were lucky to be able to visit Anrakuji because it is only open for several weeks every year, when its gardens are flourishing. My favorite place we saw along the path was Eikandô. This is another temple complex, but it also houses a two story pagoda called Tahō-tō, which required a hike up to it, but yielded a nice view down on Kyoto. The staircase up to the Tahō-tō was curved and structured with beautiful curved beams.

When we finally finished the Philosopher's Path, I got some dinner by our old hotel with Biance and Sig, my new friends. After that, we made it back to our new "kyoto no apato" at the Good Life Weekly Mansion (happy fun time lol). The three of us then decided to watch Religulous and ended up talking about religion and philosophy until 1 am.

Sunday, we went to Nijo Castle. Nijo Castle was built by the shogun Tokugawa leyasu to be his military base in Kyoto. He ruled Japan from his capital in what is now Tokyo. Nijo Castle was meant to intimidate the guests and display the shogun's power and wealth. The spaces progress towards the shogun's private quarters. There is an outer wooden walkway and the rooms within have ornate details and expensive materials. The castle also shows examples of Japanese staggered shelving and storage within the walls. The grounds are also full of beautiful gardens and a lake.

After Nijo, we went to a place called Monkey Park. The park is near a lake, and up a mountain. It costs five dollars to enter, and then you have quite a hike ahead of you. When you reach the top, there's a site that you could never see back in the United States. There are monkeys all over when you reach the pinnacle. The monkey's are wild, but there is a feeding house and a few staff members to make sure everything stays safe. When there's food around, the monkeys are very aggressive, but if you go a little higher up, there are the babies with their mothers. They were so adorable, but you have to be careful not to get too close. The scenery was beautiful and the experience was amazing.

We stayed up with the monkeys for a couple hours, and then I headed to our new project site. Our new design project is a multi-use building at another long, narrow Kyoto site. We had concepts and site analysis due today, so the rest of Sunday (though there wasn't much left) was spent on that and Japanese homework.

Today I had Japanese class and then a brief meeting with Don to discuss ideas about the project. After that, Bianca, Sig and I got some lunch and then headed to the end of the K train line. We went to see the Kyoto International Conference Hall, a brutalist building from the 1960's. It was a surreal experience. The building is a huge concrete mass that resembles a ship from a Star Wars movie. At any moment you expect it to lift off or for smaller pods to fly out of its recesses. It seems to be gently placed in this beautiful landscape, with a garden and lake. It felt like something out of a strange dream, with this strange massive building protruding out of this natural landscape.

We then took about a 20 minute walk through a residential neighborhood to a small temple called Entsûji. The temple itself was not too exciting, but the zen garden at the back offers a poetic arrangement of rocks and trees, as well as a borrowed view of Mt. Hiei in the distance, framed by trees.

After meditating for a while, we took another long walk through the neighborhood, back into town and to the Kyoto Garden of Fine Art. This is a concrete building by Tadao Ando, one of the most famous Japanese architects. The building and its program are somewhat bizzare. The museum houses replications of famous paintings, and it is called a garden because it is entirely outdoors. The concrete forms intersections of beams and walls and stairs, but the main feature is the water. When you descend into the garden, you are essentially surrounded by waterfalls, which flow down below the concrete slab into pools. Within these pools, or on the walls bordering them, the replications are displayed. The intersections and angles create an interest to the building that is unique. This was probably one of the favorite things I have seen so far, and was definitely the best 100 yen ($1) that I've spent so far.

I finally got home at around 7, after a quick and cheap dinner of a shared pizza and salad in Kyoto Station. Bianca and Sig wanted to watch a movie, but I wanted to catch up on my blog, get the paper that's due Wednesday done and get to sleep early. Unfortunately that didn't happen as efficiently as I planned because Kyle called Jeff and me on Skype from Denmark. We haven't heard from him too much so we spent quite a while on the phone with him. Now it is about 1 am and I am finally all caught up. I need to sleep so that I can go to Shugakuin, another detached palace, in the morning. Hopefully it will rival Katsura, but I'm not expecting it.