Day 10 Tuesday Kinkakuji, a Rock Garden and Yakitori
We knew today was our last day with good weather in Kyoto and we tried to make the best of it by finishing up our "must-see" spots in the Western Hills of Kyoto.
We stared at Kinkakuji, the very famous Golden Pavilion built as a retirement home for a shogun as he set up his 10 year old son to be in charge set aside as a Zen Temple in 1408. Luckily, we arrived early enough to beat the press of tourists and schoolchildren and before the breezes ruined the reflections on the pond. While the grounds were lovely, it was the beauty of the gold inlaid pavilion that really impressed us. We thought perhaps it was artificially lit as the Pavilion actually seemed to glow, but we soon realized that what we were seeing was just reflections of the light off the surface of the pond and then off the gold leaf and into our eyes. It dappled as the reflections did and was quite magical. Just because perfect wasn't good enough, cranes and ducks posed along the banks of the pond just begging to be photographed.
As the crowds thickened, we left the park and headed off to the Doumotoinsyo Museum, a museum of contemporary art which unfortunately did not allow any photos but had some wonderful prints by Doumo whose style changed from classic Japanese breathtaking wall sized rice paintings to raucous abstract images with titles like "Divillity" |
| Three of the five clusters of rocks in a zen garden |
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| Lilly Pond at Ryoanji Temple |
Our next stop: Ryoanji Temple, which contains a Rock Garden with 15 rocks (an auspicious Buddhist number) but from any spot, one of them is always hidden. The rocks are clustered in five groupings, with two to four rocks per cluster. Sitting very Zen like in my stocking feet, my thoughts drifted to how these clusters were like our family, which started off as two rocks of somewhat different sizes, grew to two large rocks of equal size and a little one (welcome Sarah), then four rocks (a big, medium, and two little...hello Becca), another four rocks of equal size (hello grown children) and then back to two rocks (the empty nesters). There is also an amber colored back wall to the garden with remarkable striations and colors, we were told a natural effect from the aging of the stone and oil used to create it that complements the austerity of the stone in a wonderful way.The garden did have a beautiful lily pond just starting to be in bloom.
We'd worked up quite an appetite, and so headed off to find a lunch spot, Okonomiyaki Katsu, that we had read about, a tiny hidden gem of a restaurant tucked away on a side street with the best food ever. After waiting a short 10 minutes outside on tiny plastic seats
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| Entrance to the Restaurant - easy to miss |
we were ushered inside and warmly welcomed. We placed our order for one veggie pancake (Okonomiyaki) with Yakitori fried noodles, and one combo dish with pork, octopus, and shrimp in a vegetable pancake. We luckily had seats at the counter where we could watch our food be prepared. It was delicious, the couple who own the tiny restaurant delightful and the day a lovely close to our sightseeing in Kyoto. By the way, TripAdvisor lists this restaurant #1 of 13,000 restaurants in Kyoto.
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| Pat and Rich with our Okonomiyaki |
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| The magical couple who cooked for us |
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