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Kyoto Images 25 images Created 17 Oct 2008

Kyoto is not content to just sit back and enjoy its former glory protected by UNESCO. Rather, Kyoto is a thriving, living, breathing center of arts and culture as much as it ever has been. A trip to Japan without visiting Kyoto is like missing the main highlights of the entire country. The city has the largest collection of UNESCO World Heritage attractions - 17 in all - on planet earth, which is saying a lot.
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  • Ninnaji Temple Monks - Ninnaji is one of Kyoto's most interesting temples with a large variety of extraordinary buildings & gardens on its spacious grounds. Among the numerous buildings on the grounds are elegant palace style buildings surrounded by beautiful Japanese gardens, a five storied pagoda, various temple halls, a massive entrance gate, bell tower and tea houses.  It was the first imperial temple in Kyoto and  now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
    ninnaji-3.jpg
  • Shisendo is a hermitage garden in eastern Kyoto established by Jozen Ishikawa, a scholar and landscape architect. After he retired as a samurai he devoted the rest of his life to learning Chinese classics. When he was 59 he built this masterpiece as a retirement villa which has come to be known as Shisendo.
    shisendo-1.jpg
  • Geta are a form of traditional Japanese footwear that resembles both clogs and flip-flops. They are a kind of sandal with an elevated wooden base held onto the foot with a fabric thong to keep the foot well above the ground. They are worn with traditional Japanese clothing such as kimono or yukata, and even with Western clothing during the summer months. Geta are often worn in rain or snow to keep the feet dry, due to their extra height.
    geta-sandals.jpg
  • Taizo-in, one of the many sub-temples at Myoshinji Temple, is well-known for its spectacular Japanese gardens but also for opening its doors to visitors and casual tourists in order to teaching Zen Buddhism, including "Zen Experience" visits which include calligraphy sessions, tea ceremony, and a vegetarian lunch called shojin ryori - a special gourmet assortment of vegetarian dishes.
    taizo-in-18.jpg
  • Drinking Tea - Japanese green tea, or ocha is the most common drink in Japan.  Not only is it loaded with vitamin C and caffeine but its antioxidant and healthy properties are making this drink a hit all around the world.
    japanese-tea-drinkers.jpg
  • The Moss Garden at Saihoji Temple is one of the few temples in Kyoto where visitors must request an invitation in advance before their visit. Visitors are required to participate in chanting and writing wishes before visiting the famous gardens. In this way the monks are able to maintain the temple and garden and prevent mass tourism from destroying the tranquility of the moss garden.
    koke-dera-6.jpg
  • Otagi Nenbutsu-ji is a Buddhist temple in Arashiyama near Kyoto that features over 1200 stone Rakan or disciples of Buddhism that were carved from across Japan under the guidance of sculptor Kocho Nishimura. Each sculpture is a display of expressive faces and gestures that still manage to translate through the moss that covers them.
    Otagi-Nenbutsuji -21.jpg
  • Arashiyama Station’s “Kimono Forest” is a colorful aspect of the station’s facelift includes designer Yasumichi Morita creations of kimono fabric patterns arranged on cylindrical columns.  The patterns have been placed inside 600 illuminated poles along pathways of the station, creating a “kimono forest”.
    kimono-forest-7.jpg
  • Kennin-ji Temple is Kyoto’s oldest Zen temples.  The temple is a perfect stop when exploring Gion. One of the temple’s most attractive features, apart from its superb garden, are the dragons painted on the ceiling of the temple's main hall.
    kenninji-dragon-2.jpg
  • Matcha Tea, a special form of green tea served with Rice Cakes. Macha is the type of tea served at tea ceremony which centers on the preparation, serving, and drinking of matcha.
    matcha-tea-01.jpg
  • Philosophers Path; Ikutaro Nishida and Hajime Kawakami, former professors at Kyoto University, used to walk along Tetsugaku-no-Michi, or Path of Philosophy in meditation - thus its name. This two-kilometer path which follows a canal, runs from Ginkaku - ji Temple to Wakaoji-Shrine. Cherry and maple trees line the small canal forming a tunnel of cherry blossoms in the spring and colorful maple leaves in the fall.
    path-of-philosophy-1.jpg
  • In almost all Japanese homes, temples and restaurants, one can find fusuma, which slide from side to side to redefine spaces within a room, and also act as doors. They typically measure about the same size as a tatami mat, and are two or three centimeters thick. They consist of a wooden frame, covered in cardboard and a layer of paper. They typically have a black lacquer border and an indented door handle. Historically, fusuma were painted, often with scenes from nature such as mountains, forests or animals.
    tatami-room-5.jpg
  • Yoko-en Garden at Taizo-in Temple displays both elegance and austerity and has been called one of the Showa era's finest gardens. The landscape gardener Nakane Kinsaku designed this expansive garden.  While difficult to see at a glance, great pains have gone into the details. An example of this is the spacious impression one gets when the garden is viewed from the front.
    taizo-in-7.jpg
  • Kinkakuji was built in 1393 as a retirement villa for Shogun Yoshimitsu Ashikaga.  He intended to cover the exterior with gold, but only managed to coat the third floor with gold leaf before his death.  After his death, his son converted the building into a Zen temple of the Rinzai school named Rokuonji in accordance with Ashikaga's wishes.
    kinkakuji-3.jpg
  • Little Japanese girl running through the Red Torii gates at Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto; Fushimi Inari Shrine is one of Kyoto's landmarks and has been featured in countless movies as backdrop.  A torii is a traditional Japanese gate commonly found at the entry to a Shinto shrine.  The basic structure of a torii is two columns that are topped with a horizontal rail. Slightly below the top rail is a second horizontal rail. Torii are traditionally made from wood and are usually painted vermilion red.
    fushimi-inari-6.jpg
  • Japanese Window with chrysanthemums.  Japanese traditional architecture makes use of shapes, contours, and spaces to create an effect that is purely Japanese.  Windows play an important part as the indoor/outdoor motif is usually a part of the overall style.
    japanese-window.jpg
  • Japanese Monk Hats, usually only worn while collecting alms in the early morning, hang along the wall at Taizoin, a sub temple of Miyoshinji Temple in Kyoto.
    zen-monk-hats.jpg
  • Shoji at Taizo-in Temple - In traditional Japanese architecture a shoji is a door, window or room divider made of translucent paper over a frame of wood or bamboo. Shoji doors are designed to slide open, and thus conserve space that would be required by a swinging door. They are used in traditional houses especially in the washitsu  or Japanese-style room.
    shoji-2.jpg
  • Apprentice geisha are called maiko literally "dance child". It is the maiko, with her white make-up and elaborate kimono and hairstyle, that has become the stereotype of a geisha to Westerners. Geiko as they are called in Kyoto (Geisha elsewhere in Japan) are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.
    maiko-1.jpg
  • Japanese Monk at Daitokuji  - The schools of Zen that currently exist in Japan are the Soto, Rinzai, and Obaku. In the year 1410 a Zen Buddhist monk from Nanzenji, a large temple complex in Kyoto wrote out a landscape poem and had a painting done of the scene described by the poem. Then, following the prevailing custom of his day, he gathered responses to the images by asking prominent fellow monks and government officials to inscribe it, thereby creating a shigajiku poem and painting scroll. Such scrolls emerged as a preeminent form of elite Japanese culture in the last two decades of the fourteenth century, a golden age in the phenomenon now known as Japanese Zen culture
    zen-monk-1.jpg
  • Kiyomizu Pagoda at Night - Kiyomizu-dera is a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, a major attraction to the city and a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Not one nail was used in building the entire temple.  It takes its name from the waterfall in the hills nearby, the water itself being sacred -  In Japanese Kiyomizu means clear water or pure water.
    kiyomizu-1.jpg
  • Sogenchi Pond Garden - Tenryuji has been ranked first among Kyoto's "Five Great Zen Temples".  Muso Soseki, the temple's founding abbot and famous garden designer, created Tenryuji's landscape garden which, unlike the temple buildings, survived the many fires and is considered one of the oldest of its kind.  This is a "borrowed landscape" garden, taking in the background scenery of the hills of  Arashiyama as part of the garden's composition. Sogenchi pond and Ishigumi rock clusters in the garden are this pond garden's main ingredients and what makes it so special.
    tenryuji-13.jpg
  • Shojin Ryori Temple Cuisine - Zen Temple food or "Shojin Ryori" is vegetarian cuisine at its most refined consisting of pickled vegetables, plus a variety of tofu dishes beautifully arranged on lacquerware and an assortment of ceramic plates.
    shojin-ryori-1.jpg
  • Chikurin-no-Michi or the Path of Bamboo is long path of bamboo trees in Arashiyama behind Tenryuji Temple. The scene appears frequently on Japanese TV dramas and in Japanese movies,particularly those set in Kyoto.
    kyoto-bamboo-forest-6.jpg
  • Tanuki Family - Tanuki is the Japanese word for a raccoon.  These creatures have been represented in Japanese folklore for hundreds of years.  The tanuki have a reputation for being mischievous.  At the same time they are jolly, good at disguising themselves. They are also absent-minded. and gullible according to legend.
    tanuki-10.jpg