Kyoto, Japan

In June I visited Japan for a work trip, and thankfully managed to have one day in Kyoto for some sightseeing.  Normally on work trips I might see the inside of a mall or video arcade for a few hours so it was really a treat to be taken around a series of temples by some of my Japanese colleagues.

So here we go... lets see how much of this I can remember, and how much Wikipedia can help pad out my storytelling.

Our first stop in Kyoto was a really nice tofu restaurant called Nanzenji Junsei, which is nearby Nanzenji Temple.  I will freely admit that I am not a massive fan of tofu normally speaking but this place made some truly amazing stuff.  I highly recommend their baked tofu.  And just because its such a fancy place they even had their own Koi pond.  Pretty right?

It feels odd to me to be starting a blog entry with pictures from a restaurant, but the place was just so pretty and traditional that I took a lot of pictures there haha.

So after a tasty lunch we first visited Nanzenji Temple, built in 1264 by Emperor Kameyama, and its site was selected because it was the Emperor's favorite place for natural beauty.
After some time the Emperor became a monk following the faith of chief priest Daiminkokushi, and so he donated his villa as a Zen temple in 1291.  (forgive the laziness I am literally copying this from the tourist pamphlet I found in my suitcase... that's what passes as research today, checking a suitcase)

In Kyoto there is a system for five great temples (Kyoto Gozan), this temple is not one of those five, instead it presides over them.  And it has since its establishment. In 1386 a new system was declared with Nanzenji at the top in its own category as "First Temple of The Land"

 These photos are at the Hattō, which is basically one of the gates.

And this very dark room was inside the Hōjō, I think

After that we went to visit a little more cheerful shrine, which also acts as a very busy marketplace and social hot spot.... this is the Fushimi Inari Shrine, which is the head shrine of Inari the kami (spirit) of foxes. Inari specifically encourages agriculture, industry, general prosperity and success.  And was the patron for sword-smiths and merchants.

This place was really vast and basically covers most of a mountain, so I thought I should include a map for your perusal.

Here you can see a Torii, these are a type of gate designed to signify that you are crossing into a sacred space.

So then why here are there lots of these gates? This is common to Inari shrines because people who have been successful in their life like to donate a Torii to thank Inari.  The name of the donator is normally inscribed on the Torii.

Once you walk through several hundred of these gates you arrive at the Inner Shrine, here you can receive various blessings, try to win wishes and there are some merchants around.

We did not explore the whole shrine since it is basically an entire mountain and we were running out of time, so then we drove to the Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion), which has the official name Rokuon-ji (Deer Garden Temple)... but I think people are just excited about the Golden Pavilion so they call it that ;)

And so they should be look how pretty that thing is!

Interesting thing about the pavilion is that it actually mixes three different architectural styles for each level: shinden, samurai and zen.

Around the pavilion are of course beautiful gardens, and a really nice walk around the pond.

And of course many opportunities to try to have a wish fulfilled (if you can aim a Japanese coin at a bowl, this may be a new career path for beer pong players)

By this stage in the day I was just taking pictures of anything pretty or hilarious... as evidenced below.

I honestly have no idea what my next post will be.... maybe I will see how many photos of a Star Trek convention I can get ;)
Update: the answer to that was about three..... and a serious hangover.


Further reading:
Nanzenji Junsei (great tofu)
Nanzenji Temple
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Torii
Inari Ōkami
Kinkaku-ji



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license.

Toyohashi, Japan

Welcome to my latest EXTREME TOURISM entry, this is one day in Toyohashi, Japan!

Toyohashi is an interesting city really, I was only there for a few days and didn't really have a local guide or much to go on, aside from the fact that there was a castle to be seen!

So I set off towards Toyohashi City Park where the castle could be found.

Along the way to the castle there was a series of really quite disturbing statues, each had a plaque which contained a story, if only I knew how to read kanji...

These most excellent statues of a phoenix are outside the Toyohashi City Public Hall, there are additional phoenixes! (note: in mythology there was only ever one phoenix, so plural phoenixes is just an estimation)

Upon arriving at the park, we read the noticeboard to find out where the castle was and were directed along a path.... 

Eventually we found the castle! This is actually a modern reconstruction of only one tiny part of what the castle had originally looked like. Here is some history from Wikipedia -


A castle was built on the banks of the Toyokawa River in 1505 by Makino Kohaku, a retainer of Imagawa Ujichika to secure his foothold on eastern Mikawa Province against the growing power of the Matsudaira clan in western Mikawa Province.
Due to its strategic location on a river crossing, the castle was involved in numerous battles during the Sengoku period, changing hands several times and was destroyed and rebuilt on several occasions.
From 1565, the castle came under the control of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who named Sakai Tadatsugu as castellan.
Following the Battle of Odawara in 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered the Tokugawa clan to relocate to the Kanto region and assigned the castle to Ikeda Terumasa.
Ikeda developed the surrounding castle town and embarked on a massive and ambitious plan to rebuild Yoshida Castle.
However, following the Battle of Sekigahara, he was relocated to Himeji Castle, with the central keep not completed.

After the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, Yoshida Castle became the center of Yoshida Domain, a feudal domain, which occupied a strategic position on the Tokaido between Edo and Nagoya.
The domain was assigned to several different fudai daimyo clans until coming into the possession of the Matsudaira (Nagasawa-Okochi) clan in 1752, which remained in residence at Yoshida until the Meiji Restoration.
The final daimyo of Yoshida, Matsudaira Nobuhisa, surrendered the castle without resistance to the Meiji government in 1868.
The castle was turned over to the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army in 1871, but largely was destroyed in a fire in 1873.
Much of the castle grounds remained in the hands of the military until the end of World War II.

Following the end of the war, a portion of the Third Bailey was transformed into Toyohashi Park, and the modern Toyohashi City Hall was constructed on another portion.
In 1954, a three-story yagura, the Kurogane Yagura was reconstructed out of reinforced concrete. An art museum and sports facilities were later erected on the site of the Inner Baileys.

The previously mentioned art museum we did not venture inside, but outside was a fairly brazen statue of some naked ladies... saucy! The photo I have of the front was way too hot for this humble blog.

Here is a random man hole cover.... most excellent!

And the obligatory temple, which we also did not go inside... I may actually post some of my older photos of Japan sometime soon since I actually visited some really quite cool places in Tokyo last time.

Next time: Paris, France (FINALLY!)


References:
Toyohashi Wikipedia Entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohashi,_Aichi
Yoshida Castle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshida_Castle
Siege of Yoshida Castle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Yoshida_Castle
Toyohashi City Museum - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohashi_City_Museum_Art_and_History

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license.