18 April 2009

So, Trudy and I woke up today to meet Don for another field trip. We thought we were supposed to meet him at the Kyoto Bus Station, but upon rechecking our email, we realized that he actually said to meet him at the temple site. It was 9am when we realized this, and we were supposed to meet at 9:30am. The bus ride would take at least 45 minutes, so we decided to go back to sleep instead. It was really nice to sleep in, and I caught up on some much needed sleep. We finally got up around 11am and decided we would visit the two temples and one garden directly north of Kyoto Station. Today was another bright and sunny day, so it was perfect for photographing.
First, we started at Nishi Honganji Temple. This one was the farthest west of the three. Upon arriving at the temple, I found out it was the mother temple of Jodo-Shinshu Buddhism so it was really cool to finally visit a temple that looked familiar to me. It was immense in size, and for some reason, it was more meaningful than any other temple I’ve visited. Since it is so close to where we are staying, I will probably go back there once more before we leave. Next, we visited Higashi-Honganji Temple, which is the one directly north of Kyoto Station. This one was undergoing some major renovations, and the main Amida Hall was completely covered in scaffolding and whatnot. We couldn’t even view the building as a whole. This complex was extremely large however, and luckily we were still able to go into most of the structures. This, too, was a Buddhist temple, but it was a different sect than Jodo-Shinshu. Lastly, we visited the Shosei-en Garden, also referred to as Kikokutei. The garden looked much larger on the map than it actually was, and it cost us 500 yen to get in. Personally, I think it was overpriced for how little you were able to see, but they also gave you your choice of one information booklet to keep. I had the choice of the overall garden pamphlet or a pamphlet on the flowers found in the garden. Since my background is purely architectural, I chose the garden one. It has some really great images in it, but I still think it was overpriced.
It was really hot outside, and we didn’t want to carry around the booklets, so Trudy and I decided to come back to the apartment to take a break. At 6pm, we decided to just wander around the mall below and above Kyoto Station. It is huge and has endless amounts of stores, so we figured it would keep us occupied for the rest of the night, and we could get food there for dinner. Jeff happened to stop by our room before we left, so he joined us as well. I felt like ramen, so we decided to eat on the 10th floor of Kyoto Station, which the ramen floor. I ordered ramen with won ton for 850 yen. It was a huge bowl, and I was still able to eat it all. By the time I got home, I was completely tired. I just hung around the room with Norio, Jeff, and Trudy and also was able to Skype with my parents. That was about it, and I went to bed fairly early since I will get up around 8am tomorrow morning to visit more temples.