Kyoto Part 1

I'm going to split up the Kyoto pics into two parts because Kyoto is pretty huge and also the city in Japan with the most historic temples and shrines. Kyoto, 京都, is blessed with so much stuff partially due to the fact that it didn't get firebombed during WWII. It is also one of the former capitols of Japan, back in the Heian period, which, as we all know, predates the Edo period, at the start of which, Tokugawa Ieyasu moved the capitol to the wee town of Edo, 江戸, now known as Tokyo, 東京. Kyoto means "capitol city," while Tokyo means "east capitol." Inventive.


This is the torii gate to some shrine. Shrines, which are Shinto, generally have gates like this, whereas temples, which are Buddhist, do not. Shinto (actually a double o), 神道, meaning "god way" is the native religion of Japan. It's one of the few folk religions to still be around today. There's a bit of ancestor worship and a lot of throwing coins into boxes and buying trinkets. Buddhism, or Bukkyo (another double o), 仏教, is obviously not native to Japan, but has been around for a long time, having made the trip from India via China in some century I'm not willing to look up. Since Buddhism doesn't necessarily have a set pantheon, the Japanese people just took the gods they already had and called them Buddhas, and that's how you get the mix of religions that most Japanese people sort of follow. That first character means "Buddha," if you are looking for a sweet kanji to tattoo on yourself, plus, it's only 4 strokes, which would probably be good, since I imagine tattoos hurt a bit. If you don't mind the pain, I'd suggest getting these tattooed on you: 闖入者, meaning "intruder," at only 27 strokes. If you prefer, there's always giraffe, 麒麟, at a mere 43 strokes. But, I digress.


Now, there's a temple. This one's called chion'in, 知恩院. It is pretty huge. Actually, that is just the front gate.


The walk up to the temple compound. There was a hilarious little kid struggling to get up as his legs were too small to let him just walk up the steps.


That's the main building. There were some other buildings, but I don't have pictures of those. While we were there, the monks started doing this chanting and marching thing, which seemed to be a big deal, and then the place closed, so we had to leave.


This was just a Bar Ber's shop. Oh, Japan.