...yes, I've just been to Japan, not for very long, but definitely worth every minute!... Once I account for all our travel time, we really only had two days in Tokyo which were at moments very zombie-like given the effects of a 16-hour jet lag and the sheer size of this city, and then two very full days in historic Kyoto after which I could only think about how I'd love to come back to explore more of its charms...
Kyoto, thought of as Japan's spiritual heart, is a city of many temples and shrines (around 2000! from what I've read), so most of our sightseeing revolved around visiting some of these, many of which are some of Japan's most iconic landmarks. Now, I'm sure if you ask sightseers in Kyoto (especially those of us there for only 48 hours!) which of the temples spoke most to them, you'd get a bunch of different answers, but probably many would include Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion), a Zen temple in northern Kyoto whose top two floors are completely covered in gold leaf which literally makes it glow in sunlight! As you can see in my photos, the whole effect of this golden temple is made even more breathtaking by the pond which surrounds it and mirrors its shimmering splendour...
OK, so after being awed by Kinkaku-ji, I thought that I had just visited the most beautiful sight I would see in my compressed time in Kyoto -- not so as I soon found out after trekking across town to the grounds of its sister temple, Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion), where this remarkable vista which seemed to me like a finely woven tapestry of trees greeted us as we entered the temple grounds...
I felt the need to immediately sit myself down (next to the beautifully raked sand garden below) just to quietly absorb this wondrous landscape of trees,...
I had the same feeling soon after as I walked down a path and saw this view which, a few steps later, led to...
... this absolutely enchanting sight of temple and pond...
... which for me was a most beautiful exanple of "Fairytale Rustic"... I kept thinking of how magical it would be to actually live in such a charming building set in such a lovely garden! And yes, someone actually did as it was originally a shogun's retirement villa in the 15th century, only becoming a temple after his death...
While it is called the Silver Pavilion, unlike Kinkaku-ji with its gold-leafed exterior, Ginkaku-ji was never plated with silver and remains an unpainted brown which I think is most fortunate -- a silver exterior would have been all wrong in this natural setting, don't you think?!...
With its simple but elegant design and beautifully tranquil setting, Ginkaku-ji Temple struck me as a perfect example of the Japanese idea that something plain, simple and unadorned can be beautiful beyond words...
As you can clearly see in the photo below, Ginkaku-ji is located in a modern city, but most amazingly, when you walk through its gates, you feel like you are leaving all that's modern behind and entering a much-needed soothing space of otherworldly beauty...
Ginkaku-ji definitely left more of an impression on me than the golden beauty of Kinkaju-ji, mostly because of how it is set on a hillside in a most beautifully designed and very atmospheric classical Japanese garden; I do think that if you pulled the temple out of the garden, it would lose so much of its magic... Now, let me confess here that aside from Japanese garden vignettes one finds in botanical gardens on our shores, the garden at Gingaku-ji was my very first experience of a proper Japanese garden, and yes... I was blown away!!! With its stunning mossy carpet gracefully covering rippled contours and beautifully accentuated by ancient roots (so many different varieties of moss sadly often unwanted in Western gardens!...), exquisitely shaped trees, charming naturalistic water features built with mossy stones, comforting and calming spaces of dappled shade created by Japanese maples -- need I say more?! In fact, words do escape me and I will simply let you "stroll" through the garden via these next few photos...
A gorgeous study in green, isn't it?! Imagine it during a rain shower and filling your lungs with in all that lovely "green"... Imagine it as it will be soon, clad in lovely autumnal colours... (sigh!)...
One of the nicest things about visiting temples is that you can come upon scenes such as the one above and below -- ah, those lovely kimonos made with that gorgeous fabric!...
And, speaking of fabric... We were walking in the very busy shopping district of Kyoto and happened upon Nomura Tailor , an absolutely fantastic fabric shop; I have truly never seen such an extensive stock of beautiful fabrics in a single store, including a large collection of Liberty fabric! Now, usually when I travel, I scope out "shops of interest" online before leaving home so I know where to go but, given how short this trip was, I decided not to do that because I didn't think I would have time to do anything else but sight see. Well, this shop clearly found me which I took as a sure sign that I could not walk out of it empty-handed, so I purchased...
... these lovely Japanese floral cottons -- and, of course, I couldn't very well leave Japan without a choice selection of Japanese craft books, now could I?!...
Thank you so much for popping by and I do hope you've enjoyed by little travelogue of my very short trip to Japan!... I have to say, Japan has smitten me and I must find my way back there to see more -- amazingly too, despite the shortness of our stay there, a whole new intriguing interest has blossomed in me, that of Japanese garden design! Isn't traveling, wherever it may be to, whether close by or to distant shores, a most wonderful thing!!... Hope you've had a great start to your month of October and talk to you very soon...
