Kiomizu Temple (in Hyogo)

Today I spent my Sunday in a traditional Japanese autumn event: a hike at a temple. It used to be that people went on foot all the way from home, but, times being what they are, folks don't have more than a 1-day weekend a lot of the time, and participating in the 4 seasons is part of what it is to be Japanese (even where winter is pretty mild and hardly a season). So instead of hiking all the way up the mountain chain through 5 cities, we drove, then hiked around on the mountain top. The crew: Nishi-sensei (always taking me places! I love that old woman for her kindness!), Trang, Maybelle, and me.

We went to Kiomizu Temple. Sound familiar? It's the same name as the one that I went to in Kyoto, the old Capital of Japan. Different temple same name. TONS of pictures. I'll just put up some of the best.

I was trying to be artistic on this one above...

Trang, from Vietnam, totally freaking out from her first season that isn't Summer in her memory. (Both from the cold and the colours, which truly are astonishing.)

Great view from atop the stairs and through the mist!

The central temple of the mountain.

I LOVE this style of architecture!! The hallway is along the inside of the set of buildings for the residence, the floor is elevated slightly from the flood-plain area, and stepping stones lead from place to place. From the hallway, glass (or rice paper) panes of equal size on wide panels can slide open to allow access to the outside from many points, conveniently, and the rooms inside all come out to the same hallway. Okay, I'm going to stop freaking out about this hallway thing now.
Ahem. Moving forward with our tour.

Another architectural point to be had here: just look at how they use natural shapes of wood in the railing here! Rather than force a piece of wood into shape, or cutting it, they keep the strongest structure by simply using the natural shape they needed to create these ancient railings. And guess what? They are still there, and they still look great.

This is simply magnificent. The trees are orange in shades I've never seen in nature, and shades of fuscia and maroon that I thought may have been original inventions of mankind...and some of them that I've never seen any place!

This wall looks like something out of Ireland, but this is also at Kiomizu! See the little baby gutter on the ground? made of metal. Keeps the footpath surprisingly drier.

Last Architectural nerd-out. well, for Kiomizu anyways. These stairs in traditional stone have been subtly filled with some almost-matching cement to keep them from wobbling and having someone crash down the entire mountain-side.

Not only are the architects here careful with what they use to make the buildings, but their gardeners also use natural, strong methods to ensure that new life comes in to replace the old. This little tree is being held up by some thick branch-support made by hand. It will live to be quite strong and large...like this next one?

Ever seen a Ginko tree? We have some at EWU. The biggest I've seen them get is maybe to about 400 lbs of tree or so...THIS one is many, many metric tons. Maybe a million leaves, I don't know. The leaves are the exact same size as the little guys we get in Washington. But this thing is gigantic. The trunk is almost like a redwood. This tree must be many hundreds or thousands of years old.

The mist blasted through the Ginko tree and past us while I was taking a photo...it's pretty, no?

The central temple in the back, a small traditional gate on the left (with an electric light--very rare) and Nishi-sensei on the right.

I decided to climb the stairs at the back of the tourist-shop to get a good view. Well worth it!

Trang and Maybelle enjoying the trees and a small lake we stoppped at on the way home.

Maybelle ALSO has never really experienced Autumn, so she was going a little nuts too.


Finally, on the way home, we passed a bunch of basaltic rock, much lke that where I was raised! We eventually got to some cuppric rock formations on the river, at an old crossing point. BEAUTIFUL. Little bridges span this river, hundreds of meters across. It's like a bigger, wider, calmer Spokane River waterfall complex downtown, but with copper instead of iron in the rocks.

A lampost planted in the craggy riverbed that is more jutting rock than it is water.

Some more of the view of the river and it's rocks. I think I'll bring the family to walk across it when they come. The place is known as "Fighting Dragons" Toryu Nada. It's not that far from Miki, about 15 kilometers from the city limits. We couldn't pass today because of the rain making it slick out there. It's quite a sight just the same!