Kyoto

This is the first half of the day I spent in Kyoto. Pretty amazing...the pictures will tell more than I will attempt to.

These are from the giant Shinto gate marking the way to the giant Shinto shrine we went to in Kyoto, called "Hee-an"



The huge front gate of He-an.

Japan wrapped up in a picture: forested mountains with civilization popping up where it can, the modern fused with the old. Ancient Japanese Shinto beliefs are right along side concerts, as this venue set up inside one of the most sacred Shinto sites shows so clearly.

Roofs in an inner building of He-an

These are from the garden of He-an. One even has a picture of me, as rare as that is. The first is upside down. I feel like the place has such an air of peace to it that it could be raining skinned cows on parachutes and it would still feel you are like walking on clouds. It is said that crossing the waters of the lakes here feels like riding a dragon. Now, I haven't ridden a dragon, but the place is so peaceful as to make the rest of Japan that I have been to feel like a warzone by comparison.

Nijo-jo (Nijo Castle): Seat of the Tokugawa Shogunate

Outer Wall: All big castles in Japan have huge stones with steep slopes on their sides.


North Face of Ninomaru Palace

Front Gate

SW Watchbuilding, from the street

South Face of the Palace

Inner Gate of Nijo

I'm glad I was trained in wood work, especially in college. I could see that Nijo was made using almost entirely the finest of Japanese pines, up to 1000 years old. The expression for the quality of the wood is this: "Make a building of 1000 year old Japanese cypress, and it will last another 1000. This is actually an underestimation for the best of cypress. We couldn't take any pictures inside the Ninomaru castle, and we weren't allowed to enter the garden (Ninomaru garden is one of the most famous in history, moonlighting in anime, video games, novels, and manga, with its 3 islands, Turtle Island, Crane Island, and The Island of Eternal Happiness). Still, every nightengail song floorboard told a story. Each was large, yet unequal in cut to the next. They were flat in most places, excepting in one hallway where I could see that the wood had expanded and contracted as a result of being completely waterlogged in the event of some catastrophic rainstorm, possibly an errant typhoon. Like all major buildings, we were barefoot, and the feel of the wood, with it's winter wood pushing out or not, felt good under my feet. The rooms were tall, and every inch of wall was painted by a master painter. I could see where subsequent boards had been laid from the same tree, and where they had alternated, showing multiple work crews during some times, delays in building from something coming up, when the hard times hit for finding enough flawless cypress, and even the order in which the buildings were built and connected to form the palace. It is majestic and flawless, yet, even old grain tells all. I never thought in shop class, or even in "Non-Metallic Processes" in college would have given me so much insight over the rest of my mostly-native companions on the trip. I'd like to give a personal, sincere thanks to my shop teachers right now.