The wooden stage juts out of the main hall, 13 metres above the ground. Both the stage and main hall were built without the use of any nails. The lookout point gives a fine view of Kyoto city and the surrounding hills. We were there at the tail-end of the autumn foliage season, but it was still awash in hues of reds.
Yaay, no crowds! Just another hour or two later, and there will hardly be enough walking space over there. There are just not many mommies out there who have the courage to rouse their sleeping families at the break of dawn to visit a temple during a holiday...kekekeke
Kiyomizudera, literally Pure Water Temple, took its name from the Otowa Waterfalls in the wooded hills of eastern Kyoto, near the Higashiyama district.
The waterfalls can be found at the base of the main hall. Its waters are divided into 3 streams, and visitors can use long ladles to drink from them. Each stream is said to have a different benefit, i.e. academic success (left stream), love life (middle) and health (right stream). Drinking from all three won't grant you any.
When we got up there, we had no idea which stream was for what, so we all ended up drinking for academic success (or it could have been health, depending on how you look at it). Both are fine blessings, but Sophie was hoping for academic success for her national exams next year.
Being early also guaranteed my go-shuin (temple seal/stamp) from a "live" calligrapher/priest. More on that in the next post.
The streets leading up to the temple were just starting to fill up with tourists as we started to leave.
After a nice breakfast, we headed back to the house for a morning nap, and ventured forth again in the afternoon, this time to the Philosopher's Path (Tetsugaku no michi). The 1-km walk along a canal lined with cherry blossom trees stretches from Ginkakuji (The Silver Pavilion) in the north to Nanzenji in the south.
You are bound to come across something interesting:
From bears out fishing in the pleasant weather,
to kimono-clad girls out for a stroll with their selfie sticks,
to watercolour artists painting the canal scene (he uses Schminke!),
to small shops selling all forms and manners of souvenirs and "cute things that you want to buy but don't have a use for", to quote our wise Sophie. Grudgingly agreeing with this indisputable nugget of wisdom, I refrained from buying anything,
except for a bag of hot chestnuts for all to share and snack on >:(
Once we reached the end of the path at Eikan-do, we were quickly overwhelmed (again) by the crowds queueing to get in, though that moved relatively quick. The temple is not listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but I highly recommend it for autumn colours. The leaves there were much more intense in flaming reds and oranges, dazzling the eyes.
But this is what you have to tussle with to get a shot of the above.
Even though the temple is not listed, it is still a venerable institution, having been founded around the 9th century, and made into the current headquarters of the Jodo Seizan Zenrin-ji sect since the 12th century.
Eikan-do is famous for its "looking back" Buddha. The story goes that in the early hours of 15 February, 1082 (I'm impressed how precise they can get with something that happened more than 900 years ago), in the freezing cold of the morning, the then chief priest, the Abbot Eikan, while reciting the Nembutsu sutra, was walking around a statue of Amida Buddha. As dawn as breaking, Amida came down from his pedestal, and began walking away, beckoning to Eikan. When Eikan did not comply due to shock, Amida looked back and called to him in a soft voice, "Eikan! Come with me!".
This was also the site where, as Sophie called it, "Mont St-Michel Part II" took place. See here for Part I. The Doctor had assured me that it was fine to split up because we both had roaming data and can keep in touch with WhatsApp this time, unlike our previous trips. When Sophie and I split up with the boys to get my go-shuin inside the temple while they remained in the gardens, that was also the implied plan.
Feeling strange that there were no "hurry up!", "where are you?", "are you done?" messages after half an hour, we emerged from the buildings into the gardens to find many, many people still wandering about,....but no Doctor and no son or brother in sight.
After frantically searching, calling, even using the Find my iPhone feature, but getting nothing in return (theft? accident? alien abduction? distracted by kimono girls?), we finally had no choice but to leave the complex when they announced the closing. As we reluctantly approached the exit, I noticed the bright scalp and energetic wave of a set of familiar arms from amongst the crowd outside. He blamed it on the defect in the iPhone 6 batteries which shut down his phone despite it being adequately charged.
This was the last place I saw my husband and son. Sophie and I finally reunited with them 1.5 hours later, after 1 hour of searching.
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