Ryoanji

As I mentioned previously, it was on day 3 that I moved to a new place. Well, when I woke up on day 4 I decided I wanted to check my email briefly before I left for a shiny new day of sightseeing. Much to my sorrow, the computer was broken--and they only had one. I was quite bitter, as I had been looking forward to free internet. There were no internet cafes around, as far I could tell, although the ryokan owner told me that there was one in a nearby barber shop. I was fairly dubious about this, and decided to find one on my own. I eventually ended up going to this nice little restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet. Although they charged exhorbitant prices for my sandwich and hot chocolate, that included 2 hours of internet access, and I was pretty much in heaven. So it all worked out.

By the way, if you ever decide to go to Kyoto, I highly recommend buying an all-day bus pass, especially if you are a crazed temple-seeing machine like me. They cost 500 yen, and are good for all buses within the city limits--which will take you to most sites. Considering that a basic ticket costs about $2 each (if I remember correctly) it doesn't take many bus rides to make it really pay for itself. Plus it's a lot more convenient than fumbling around with change. I think that I probably took about 8 different bus rides one day--it doesn't help that I'd sometimes get lost. Also it was convenient for going to internet cafes, for example!

I believe I actually went to Ryoanji before Kinkakuji. I remember I wanted to go as early in the morning as possible, because I'd heard that Ryoanji got very crowded very fast. It kind of worked. When I first arrived, it was fairly quiet, but by the time I made it to famous rock garden it had become quite busy--although I'm sure it was nowhere near as bad as it could have been! Ryoanji had some lovely gardens (the normal kind), and a beautiful lake. I enjoyed taking some pictures of that.

As you can see, the leaves were just starting to turn red. I really like the ladder looking thing which is propping up that tree--so beautiful! It's such an elegant way to do things; I really approve.

The lake had a lot of lily pads as well. I imagine it must be beautiful when they're in bloom. As you can see, the weather wasn't quite so perfect yet, but it was still very nice.

So this is the famous rock garden of Ryoanji. This was one of the places I was definitely excited to see, because I'd learned all about in various art history classes, of course. Basically the story with this is that these 15 rocks, placed in a carefully raked sea of sand, are meant to provoke thought, general contemplation, and, presumably, enlightenment. Apparently you can never see all 15 at once--until you're enlightened. I have no idea if this is the case. As you can see, there are only a few boulders visible in this shot.

I was not the only one who was fond of Ryoanji, as you can see. It was nice, though, despite all the other tourists, that you could sit next to the rock garden and just contemplate it. I imagine that during the height of tourist season it must be pretty horrific, though.