Kinkaku-ji 「金閣寺」

Thanks to the medicine, and some superior care, Ben felt almost 100% better today, so we plotted our trajectory and headed off after the usual morning messing around.

Kinkaku-ji 「金閣寺」, the golden pavilion. Thousands upon thousands of tourists, both Japanese and international, flock to see this small but beautiful temple in Kyoto's northwest, and the gardens that surround it.

It was originally built in 1397 to serve as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, as part of his estate then known as Kitayama. It was his son who converted the building into a Zen temple of the Rinzai school. The temple was burned down twice during the Ōnin War.

The Golden Pavilion, or Kinkaku, is a three-story building on the grounds of the temple. The top two stories of the pavilion are covered with pure gold leaf. The pavilion functions as a shariden, housing relics of the Buddha.

The Golden Pavilion is set in a magnificent Japanese strolling garden (kaiyū-shiki). The pond in front of it is called Kyōko-chi (Mirror Pond), and taking a look at photos of the temple across this pond on a still day will show you why. (When we went it was on and off drizzle with a slight breeze, so the mirror effect was not as fantastic as it could have been). The many islands and stones on the pond represent the Buddhist creation story.

In 1950, the pavilion was burned down by a monk, who then attempted suicide on the hill behind the building. He survived, but during the investigation after the monk's arrest, his mother was called in to talk with the police; on her way home, she committed suicide by jumping from her train into a river valley. The monk was sentenced to seven years in prison; he died of illness during his imprisonment in 1956. At that time, the statue of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was burned.

The present structure dates from 1955. Recently, the coating of Japanese lacquer was found a little decayed, and a new coating as well as gilding with gold-leaf, much thicker than the original coatings, was completed in 1987. Additionally, the interior of the building, including the paintings, was also restored. Finally, the roof was restored in 2003.

It's not unusual for a Japanese temple to display the renovations, rebuilding and destruction of temples on a sign (usually) near the entrance of the temple. I swear, if they didn't rebuilt a temple once it was destroyed, there would hardly be any temples or shrines left in Japan today.

So after meandering around the gardens, admiring the lustrous sheen of the pavilion itself and getting really sick of the weekend crowds, we rode back to town to get some food, then back home to the apartment.

We waited until nightfall until we emerged again, heading towards the main stretch along the riverbanks. Tonight the annual event of Daimonji was going to happen, where enormous kanji, characters the Japanese borrowed from China, are written on nearby mountains... in fire!

Sounds absolutely awesome, right? Well, I'm sure it would have been if we'd been able to see a damn thing. A mixture of huge crowds, buildings in the way and the entire irritation of the situation made getting a decent shot very difficult indeed. The shots we got earlier that day while they were preparing for tonight was better.

In the end we just rode back home again, as this event lacked the happily raucous festival atmosphere most Japanese festivals have.

So tired after today. We rode over 20 kilometers to and from Kinkaku-ji, then to the "best" viewing spots for Daimonji, then home again.


PS: Happy birthday Erin!