So on my last day in Kyoto I went to the Sanjusangendo Temple – one of the largest wooden structures of Japan – over 100 meters long. The name actually means something like 33 spacers in between each column. It holds 1000 wooden statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy, one big statue in the middle and another 50 of traditional gods. Many of these gods are “believed” to have represented this or that since there does not seem to be many known history about their exact meaning. Also interesting to see that they are all related to ancient Indian gods. I took some pictures of the courtyard but unfortunately you cannot take pictures inside…
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| Kyoto Last Day |
I found this site with some nice pictures – click here.
The second temple I visited was the Kiyomizudera (“Pure Water Temple). I was too tired to go all the way inside the whole thing but went into a very interesting section of it. You take your shoes off (obviously) and walk down these narrow sets of stairs. Mind you, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to see… I was just following the crowd. What I saw was absolutely NOTHING… it was completely dark and silent. I placed my hand in front of my eyes and could not see them. The path twisted and turned until suddenly there is a large round rock at the level of the eye, illuminated by a single light. On the rock one letter/word/symbol. Beautiful for its simplicity and for the experience of being deprived of your senses for a while and then see only this one rock… the path continued for a little bit and then you go back up the stairs and out into the world again.
After that I walked around Gion for a little bit but the rain was just not pleasant. Took some videos of some interesting buildings and went back to the hotel to get my bags and jump on the train back to Tokyo.