Visit to Kyoto

Tour of Kyoto

The Temple of Sanju-Sangen-do

We paid our entrance fee of 600 yen and felt a little ripped off when we learned that the Temple originally built in 1164 was lost in a fire, and that what we saw was a mere reconstruction, built in 1266!

The long temple hall, about 120 meters long, is made in the Wayo style architecture. There are 33 spaces between the columns that give the temple its name (“Sunju-Sangen-do” actually means a hall with 33 spaces).

The principal images of the Temple are the 1001 statues of the Buddhist deity, Juichimen-senju-sengen Kanzeon. Folks back then thought his name was way too long and just called him “Kannon” for short. So the 1,000 stabdibg statues of Kannon and the one big one at the center of the hall are made of gold-plated Japanese cypress. They were all made in the 12^th and 13^th centuries.

The Annual Temple Fair

Every year in January, a traditional archery competition is held in the western garden of the Temple. 20-year-old female archers celebrate their coming of age in beautiful traditional dresses participate in a bow and arrow shooting competition. Everything is held in a very traditional and reverent Japanese style (after which all participants ceremoniously throw away their fake ID’s which they had used over the years to buy Kirin beer at the local Seven Eleven, and celebrate their legal drinking age).

The Statues of Thunder God and Wind God

The rather fierce looking dudes (Bryan’s description, not mine), are derived from people’s fear of and gratitude for nature in the 12^th century. They worshipped them as deities who controlled the rain and the wind, and brought about good harvests. These statues are representative masterpiece sculptures of the Kamakura period (12^th - 14^th centuries) and have served as inspiration to latter day video game designers. It remains unknown to this day, where sculptors got the strange anatomy of their prominent abdominal muscles (see picture), as Laura pointed out.

Overall, the Sanju-Sangen-Do is marked by an unfamiliar absence of merchandising, as was noticed by us aspiring MBA’s. While some of us marveled at the craft of ancient artisans, others developed case studies of how to create further revenue opportunities by providing advertising space on the bare walls of the temple, and removing some of the sculptures to make room for a 24-Hour-Nautilus Center.

Temple of the Golden Pavilion

The 3rd Shogun of Ashikaga decided in 1394 that he wanted to cash in his stock options and enjoy early retirement. He made every effort to make the Kinkaku-Ji Temple a breathtaking sight. By 1987, the gold-leaf, now five times thicker than the original, was fully restored.

The name of the surrounding pond is Kyoko-chi (Mirror Pond). It contains many large and small islands.

The Rock Garden

This simple garden measures only thirty meters from east to west and ten meters , south to north. The rectangular Zen garden is completely different from the gorgeous gardens of court noblemen, normally associated with the Middle Ages.

It is up to the beholder to figure out the deeper significance in the arrangement of the rocks. The longer you gaze at it, the more varies your imagination becomes. Some of it stared at it for so long, that we were starting to make plans which of the rocks and surrounding walls could be used to sell advertising space...