Kyoto Adventure -- Day Two

Today was a definite highlight day.  We're going to visit the Kiyomizu-deru, an amazing World Heritage. There are actually 17 historical locations in Kyoto, all grouped together under one single UNESCO World Heritage name -- Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto.  

Be sure to click on the pictures to enlarge, especially so you can see the gorgeous red pagodas.

We're heading up a very touristy street toward the Buddhist Kiyomizu-Deru.  Lots of fun shops with all kinds of Japanese memorabilia.
Buddhist places of worship are generally large temple complexes.  This Buddhist complex is very "complex," covering about 32 acres.

First look at the entrance to the Kiyomizu-Deru.  It's hard to get a good picture facing into the early morning sunlight.  I tried to catch the Japanese flag unfurled in the breeze so you can see the red sun.  Japan is known as the "land of the rising sun."

Gorgeous three-story pagoda within the Kiyomizu-Deru complex.  The wooden structure has been lacquered with vibrant colors.

Kiyomizu-deru means "pure water temple."  It was built next to the sacred Otowa Waterfall which has flowed for over a thousand years.

The main hall of the temple juts 13 m (43 ft) over the floor of the valley.  Tradition says that if you jump off it, and survive, you will be granted your wishes.  But the practice was banned in 1872, thankfully.  Before that, 234 people were recorded to have jumped and 200 apparently survived.  I wonder if their wishes came true . . . and how many broken bones or heads they had.

   There is a Japanese saying, "Kiyomizu no butai kara tobioriru," meaning "to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu", which translates in English to "taking the plunge" or "taking a leap of faith."

I'm standing on the main hall of the temple of Kiyomizu-deru.  This huge building was built without using any nails.  It has survived for hundreds of years.

Now from that main hall, we are looking down on the Otowa Waterfall.  What?  You can't see a waterfall?  That's because it comes down the hill and into that building below the colorful red building.  You can see people lined up to take a drink from the sacred waterfall, hoping to receive a blessing.  

We feel blessed already, so we didn't drink from the waterfall.  And anyway, the line was much too long. 

See below for a video of others seeking blessings by striking a drum with a huge drumstick.  So interesting.

Ah . . . at last you know I am here.  LeRon loves this place so is taking more pictures than usual.  Usually it's me, clicking away.

Can you see that beautiful pagoda amongst the wonderful foliage?  Pagodas are part of Buddhist temple complexes and are used to house sacred relics.

I was curious as to the differences between pagodas, temples, and shrines.  This is what I learned:

Pagodas:

• Multi-tiered towers
• Primarily Buddhist
• Built to house relics

Temples:

• Large houses of worship, often with many buildings
• Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism
• Has main prayer hall, graveyards
• Used for community worship; funerals

Shrines

• Small, sacred spaces
• Shinto religion
• Special entry gates, such as torii gates, to divide worldly from the sacred
• No graveyards; no funerals held

Now on to more pictures of this delightful place . . .

Huge golden lantern hanging in the temple.

I'm inside the temple with people lined up to strike the drum (as in the far above video.)

This Buddha's hand positions represent the sharing of spiritual knowledge.  There are many different Buddha hand positions or hand gestures that represent a multitude of things.

The Buddha is housed in this ornate and colorful pavilion.

Gorgeous ceilings too.  Nothing is spared to provide a place of beauty.

Stone basin and wooden dipping spoon to use for purification and prayers.  Following is a video of me doing the purification.  As I watch it, I can see why I never became an actress.  The minute the camera is turned on me, I become very awkward.  Actually, I look like the little old lady that I have become and that is embarrassing.  But really, I wanted to be respectful.

View of the main hall from which people used to jump to gain blessings (or broken bones or death).  You can see some of the 130 wood pillars that hold up the building that stands 13 meters (43 ft) above the ground.  They didn't use any nails.  Instead they used interlocking wooden joints. 

The Tabernacle of our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Salt Lake City was also built with wooden joints and no nails.  It was finished in 1867, the year Canada became a country.  So 159 years for both.

The main statue is of Jizo Bosatsu, who is known as the protector of children, travelers, and the unborn.  Worshippers place the red bibs or aprons to protect against evil.

This time the pagoda is made of stone.  Most pagodas are made of wood and house sacred items or writings.  This stone pagoda is solid, with 11 stories.  A Buddha is carved on the lowest story.

But I still like the wooden pagodas, lacquered in vibrant colors, the best.

And LeRon loves any kind of lantern.  This one has a stone base and a bronze lantern.

Now we're walking in the extensive woods surrounding the temple complex.  Here's a torii gate with stone foxes guarding a stone altar.  Lots of stones here.

More stones . . . pilgrims stack stones as a memorial to their ancestors.

Last look at the Otowa Waterfall with its three streams of water.  Each stream represents a different blessing -- one for academic success, one for love, and one for health.  You get to choose.  But only choose one or two.  If you drink from all three, you are considered greedy and you won't get any blessing at all.  And on a side note, I wonder if they clean the wooden dippers between drinks.

And last look at the gorgeous pagoda.  The colors and ornamentation are stunning.

On our way to finding the nearby Kodai-ji Temple, we discovered a War Memorial.  Not made of stone this time, but of concrete and steel.  It was built to honor those who died in World War II, both soldiers and civilians.  About 3 million names are listed inside the memorial.  

Being interested in WWII -- I had an uncle who landed on the Beaches of Normandy and survived, and LeRon had two uncles who also survived the war -- I researched the approximate numbers of deaths in several countries in World War II:

• Russia -- 26-27 million soldiers and civilians
• Germany -- 6-8 million soldiers and civilians
• Japan -- 2-3 million soldiers and civilians
• Great Britain -- about 454,000 soldiers and civilians
• United States -- about 417,000 soldiers
• Canada -- about 45,000 soldiers

That's a lot of people who were sent to live in the Spirit World, and all because tyrants wanted to take over the world.  War is so awful.

Within the Kodai-ji Temple complex is this darling cute historic Japanese tea house, complete with thatched roof and round window.  Apparently it's called the "Cottage of Lingering Fragrance."  

I never smelled any lingering fragrance, but I wondered:  Did it come out of Lord of the Rings?  Was it a cute Hobbit house?  We got to see real Hobbit houses in New Zealand in 2018.  Well, real in that they were real for the filming of the movie.  An amazing place to visit and highly recommended if you go down under.

The Kodai-ji was another gorgeous Buddhist temple.  The painted rafters support the curving roofline and the chain is . . . you guessed it (or maybe you didn't), a downspout called a "rain chain."  Who knew?

A closer view of the downspout rain chain and the decorative rafters.  Why is architecture in the west so ho-hum?  Let's get a bit more color into our lives!

Another Buddhist Temple, this time the Kennin-jin Temple, which is the oldest Zen Buddhist Temple in Kyoto, which has a LOT of temples.  We didn't go inside this hall because I knew we would have to take our shoes off and because of my diabetes, my feet are not happy without shoes.  Plus we were beat from walking in the heat and high humidity.  But we should have gone inside.  I have learned that inside is an amazing painting on the ceiling.  True, it's not ancient, having been completed in 2002.  See next photo, which was taken from the internet.

The artist spent two years painting these twin dragons in a building in Hokkaido (where we will go next week) and then mounted the painting on the ceiling of this Dharma Hall in the Kennin-jin Temple complex.  In Zen Buddhism, dragons represent wisdom, protection, and balance.  Apparently as you look up at the dragons, their eyes seem to follow you.  Wish we would have seen it.  Another time.

But we did see this very interesting statue -- what is it?  A Buddha riding a pig?  No, it's not a pig.  It's a wild boar.  If you touch it, it will bring you success or good fortune.  We should have touched it.

We're ready for another adventure in eating.  What is under that beautifully lacquered dish?

It's unagi.  EEL!!  Eel over rice.  Actually quite delicious.  Doesn't taste fishy.  Sort of like soft beef.  We've eaten a lot of interesting things on this trip . . . gold leaf . . . unagi . . . and later we will eat shark!

We're walking the streets, killing time until our 6 p.m. geiko show.  More on that later.  But here, LeRon is demonstrating how he used to go "knocking on doors."  Only he didn't knock.  He called out, "May we come in?" in Japanese of course.  The home owner would then slide open the door and either welcome them in, or he/she would slam (or rather, slide) it shut and tell the missionaries to go away.

LeRon says that this street looks like what he remembers!  So fun to be here.

Another street reminds LeRon of his old missionary days.  He left Japan about 52 years ago, having served a 2-year mission from 1972-1974.  (Then he came home and I found him and he married me in 1975).

Three white hanging cloths indicate that a shop is open for business.  Yes, the door is open too, but the cloths prevent dust and wind from blowing in and they block sunlight.  You just duck under them and enter the shop.

LeRon saw these straw ornaments everywhere when he lived here.  They are rice-straw talismans that protect against evil.  LeRon thought the wooden placard gave the name of the family.  But google says that "The wooden placard usually reads Somin Shōrai Shison Kamon" (蘇民将来子孫家門), meaning This is the house of the descendants of Somin Shōrai.  According to Shinto folklore, the deity Susanoo-no-Mikoto promised to protect Somin Shōrai's descendants from plagues if they displayed a straw marker."
So now we know what it means.

But LeRon says that houses often had a wooden placard, similar to this, displaying people's addresses.  So we think that sometimes it was an address and sometimes it was a talisman against evil.  Stop . . . you're both right.  (If any of you oldie-goldies remember the Certs advertisement. . . Certs is a breath mint.  Certs is a candy mint.  Stop. You're both right.  Certs is two mints in one!  Remembering this ad shows my age.)

What?  The Rosetta Stone in Japan?  No, not the Rosetta Stone (which was an ancient Egyptian stone that helped to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs -- and which we have seen in the British Museum in London).  But it is ancient and it is inscribed with ancient history -- not Egyptian, but Japanese.

Our very long and hot day ended with a cultural show in the Gion district.  Music, dancing, comedy, and a tea ceremony.  But no pictures allowed, sadly.  This one was snatched from the internet.

Sometime in our later afternoon (and before the above show, we wandered through a very small bamboo forest.  Bamboo is intriguing to us because it grows so quickly.  (Nothing grows quickly in Alberta).  We have seen bamboo in many countries in our travels.

Tomorrow we will take the train to Nagoya and then to Shizuoka, where LeRon spent a lot of his time as a missionary.  In Shizuoka, he often saw Mt. Fuji.  And yes, we too caught a glimpse of Fuji -- for about 30 seconds before the clouds covered it again.  More on that next time!