Ginkakuji

The next morning, when I woke up, it took me quite a while to decide where I wanted to go first. There are so many incredibly famous and interesting sites in Kyoto--for an art historian, it was ridiculously difficult! Eventually, though, I decided I wanted to try heading to Ginkakuji, a very famous temple along the Philosopher's Path. The temple is named "Ginkakuji" (Silver Pavilion) despite not being silver. There is, however, a Kinkakuji nearby (Gold Pavilion) which is, in fact, gold--it just seemed handy, I suppose. (To be fair, it almost seems that the original building, one of the Ashikaga shoguns, originally planned to cover it in silver--this plan was derailed by the endless Onin wars.)

It took me a while to find the place--I hadn't quite gotten the hang of the bus system yet, and I got off at the wrong stop. I made it there eventually though, and it was completely worth the long stroll through a residential neighborhood. (It was actually very beautiful.)

Ginkakuji is perhaps most notable for its sand gardens (see below), and also for the remarkably lovely normal gardens. I was lucky enough to be there on a beautiful day--bright sun, but not hot or humid at all. A little later on, it cleared up even more and there were perfect blue skies--this was true through most of my trip, actually.

One of my favorite pictures. You can't even tell there were actually a huge number of people there! It all looks so peaceful... Actually, despite the crowds, the grounds were fairly big, and so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

I believe this is supposed to represent Mount Fuji, or something of that nature. It's pretty damn cool looking, however.

Another sand sculpture in the sand garden. Quite lovely--I've no idea what it is supposed to represent.

After you walked around the sand garden/temple buildings in the lower half of the grounds, you could climb up a small path to a beautiful structure on the top. It was covered with this beautiful canopy. If you looked out, you can see over the entire city, as well as the temples down below. The part of Kyoto that Ginkakuji is located in is built along the western hills of the valley that surrounds the city.

Back down out of the hills, there is even more beautiful landscaping and ponds.

As you can see here, as well as below, Ginkakuji has a great deal of beautiful moss. During autumn especially, I imagine, it's very beautiful. Apparently this is some Very Important Moss. I'm not sure exactly why.

The gardens are lush, wet, and beautiful. As you can see, the sun was out by this time. It was really nice--wandering around in this back part of the temple, there was a fairly small number of people, despite the fame of the temple.

One of my favorite things about temple gardens--these beautiful, traditional props that hold up ailing trees. It allows the monks and landscapers to retain the old traditional shape of the garden without having to introduce any modern wire or anything.