The Golden Pavilion

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, formally known as Rokuon-ji, is the most popular tourist attraction in Kyoto. The pavilion was originally built as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu in the late 14th century, and converted into a temple by his son. However, the pavilion was burnt down in 1950, by a young monk who had become obsessed with it. 

Although all of the buildings on the temple’s site have been reconstructed, the garden remains as it was in former days and can be enjoyed as it was hundreds of years ago.

Rokuon-ji Temple was inscribed as World Cultural Heritage in 1994.

Ryoanji Temple

Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto, Japan is famous for its Zen garden, which is considered to be one of the most notable examples of the "dry-landscape" style.  Look  up Ryoanji Temple in any travel website or tour guide and you will find excited ravings about how amazing the Ryoanji Zen garden is.  So, I don’t know if I had my expectations too high but honestly, I was a little disappointed.  Let’s take a look: 

 

Walking up the steps of Kuri, the main building of the temple.  Our exciting Zen experience awaits!

See this picture?  Imagine 15 rocks artistically placed randomly in white gravel and you’ve pretty much summed up the Ryoanji Zen rock garden.  No trees, barely any grass, no trickling water, just rocks and gravel.  Sure, they’ve drawn some nice pretty circles in the white gravel but it’s pretty much just rocks and gravel.  Wow! And apparently this Zen garden has been wowing the masses since 1525! 

 

Speaking of the masses, people come from far and wide to see these rocks (we did after all).  They don’t just look at the rocks, they sit and contemplate the rocks for hours!  During our brief visit to the Zen garden (which we had to pay 500 yen to see by the way) I started looking at the faces of the people sitting and admiring the rocks.  I’ve never seen so many blank-faced-zoned-out people in my life.  It was like an alien spaceship came down to the Ryoanji temple, landed, sucked out the brains on the poor tourists and locals that were there, and left a few rocks as payment.  These people were seriously pondering the meaning of life, the universe, and everything while sitting with their Zen rock spirit guides.  I have nothing against this of course.  I think it’s awesome these people were finding the Zen garden to be filled with so much peace and tranquility.  I just found the whole thing rather surreal.  Surreal but pretty damn peaceful! 

I 

There’s a famous vegetarian restaurant on the temple grounds called the Ryoanji Seven Herb Tofu.  The “O” on the noren curtain above signifies affability and an earnest hope for peace and harmony in the world – one cube of tofu at a time (oh, in case you’re wondering, I added the last little bit)! 

  

The name, Ryoanji Seven Herb Tofu is not only the name of the restaurant but it’s pretty much a spot on description of the menu.  Seven Herb Tofu…that’s pretty much it.  The tofu is boiled in plain water and served to you with a dipping sauce made out of soy sauce and seven herbs (mystery herbs just like KFC).  Some people may find it too simple and too bland tasting but since I’m a fan of tofu I loved it.  It was a nice refreshing lunch.

Especially when I washed it down with great tasting hot sake!

Astro Boy

Astro Boy is a Japanese manga/anime character first introduced in 1963.  I remember in the 1970s they were broadcasting English dubbed versions on a couple Canadian television stations so as a kid I was well aware, and excited by, Astro Boy’s existence.  Because of this early childhood fascination with Astro Boy it was quite fitting for him to be the first character I saw once we exited the Kyoto train station.  Memories of running around the house in pulled up red socks flooded back to me when I saw our robot friend here:

Since we’re on the theme of manga (Japanese comic books) and anime (Japanese animation), I had the pleasure of going to the Kyoto International Manga Museum. 

  Beyond Japanese manga the museum also featured several exhibits dedicated to other forms of comics books internationally.  My personal childhood favorites, Tintin (Belgian) and Asterix (France) were featured as well as the original Smurf comics from Belgian.  The international selection of manga was small in comparison to the Japanese offerings.  The Kyoto International Manga Museum is essentially a huge, multi-floored library where you can go in and read comics.  If you’re a comics fan, this place is a dream come true.  A annual membership allows you unlimited access all the manga in the building.  As you can see by the photographs below, the walls are lined with thousands of manga!

 

Thank you Kyoto for bringing back that carefree, excitable kid in the silly red socks!

No, I’m not wearing my Astro Boy red socks in this photo but if I remember correctly, I was wearing some pretty snazzy red undies!

Cherry Blossoms

April is cherry blossom season in Kyoto, Japan.  It seems every tourist in the world had the same idea as us to go to Japan during this time.  Hotels were impossible to book but finally, after a week of searching, we located a hotel in central Kyoto.  I’m glad we were able to book this one hotel because without it, we were debating on altering our travel plans and go somewhere else.  I’m glad we didn’t, Kyoto, Japan in April is an amazing and beautiful sight to see!  The photographs below were taken in various parks, streets, and temples throughout the greater Kyoto area.  Beyond the stunning cherry blossoms in the photos you may also notice another important happening:  Aimee’s pregnant!  That’s right, our son isn’t even born yet and he has already been to Kyoto, Japan.  Not only Kyoto, but also Canada, Philippines, China, and Hong Kong.  Lucky kid!  He’s been to more international places as a fetus than I was within the first 25 years of my life!  I hope he enjoyed the cherry blossoms; Aimee and I certainly did!  Take a look:

   

Kyoto Cute

Japan is the land of cute! Every where Aimee and I went in Kyoto we found overly cute and obsessively-happy cartoon characters staring back at us. Something as simple as ‘please clean up after your dog’ becomes a happy frolic in the cutesy theme park where there’s a never-ending supply of Prozac to go around. All signs are cute; it doesn’t matter if it’s a personal shop owner’s sign or a government issued sign: everything is damn cute in Japan. Since I found myself constantly being surrounded by cuteness I decided to start taking pictures. Here are some of the photos I saw while there:

Beyond cuteness there is also sadness. Sadness because the poor English language sometimes gets a little abused in Japan. While in Osaka I saw this in our hotel room:

You would think that before they printed out several hundred of these sheets for the hotels rooms that they would run the spelling by at least one fluent English speaker. I mean, how is it possible for a business to get a translation so badly wrong? I mean seriously, MICHLOWAVE? VANDING MACHINE?? NON SMORKING ROOM??? Sad sad sad. Sad yes, but extremely funny too! Aimee and I were giggling about that all day. Or maybe it was the Prozac cartoon characters that were making us giggle?