In Pursuit of Mysteries

A Visit to Mt. Hiei

R and I took the train out to Mt. Hiei (Hieisan) today. This is the home of Tendai Buddhism, from whom the temple I am associated with in Ohio derives its lineage. The temple complex is about an hour outside of Kyoto on top of a mountain.

We took a JR line train out there and then took the cablecar up the mountain.

From there, we explored the East and West complexes. The east complex, Todo, contains Enryaku-ji, which has a number of famous buildings in it, such as Konpon-Chudo:

We spent a couple of hours wandering around there.

The west complex is Saito and is connected to Todo by a 1.2 kilometer trail connecting them. When they say “1.2 kilometers” to you, they don’t mean a nice easy grade with a paved way and handrails. This trail goes up and down and around. It includes what I can only call the “Stairs of Doom”, which look quite nice, until you are seeing them from the bottom on your way back after hiking on a mountain for five hours.

I have a photoset with, oh, 145 photos in it up on Flickr now for you to see if you are so inclined. These are being added to the overall Japan collection, which will include all of the smaller sets that I do.

Tomorrow, we plan on seeing the Kyoto Imperial Palace and maybe some of the larger temples and shrines in town.

Octopi in the Temple

We saw the strangest Buddhist temple today in the shopping district in Kyoto. It was filled with images of octopi everywhere, from statues through drawings. There was even drawings done by kids and talismans to be hung that each had an octopus on them. Odd.

Tokyo Imperial Palace

We went to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo today. This was a guided tour (in Japanese) of the grounds of the current Imperial Palace. We’ll be going to the historic one in Kyoto later this week.

The palace was a bit underwhelming. The original palace buildings were destroyed in World War II in the bombings. The current palace dates from the 1960s and just seems a bit ugly.

The grounds were very nice though and I put up a set of the photos that I took.

After this, we caught the bullet train to Kyoto and arrived in the late afternoon. We’re in a 4 1/2 tatami room at a local inn for the next nine nights. After that, we’ll go to Koyasan for two days.

I’m fighting a nasty case of tenderfoot and have developed some lovely blisters from all the walking. I’m trying not to let it slow me down though.

Tomorrow, we’ll probably take it easy, maybe doing a little craft shopping. I’m trying to convince R to go to one of the local Zen temples that has a tour, a nice bit of art, and some Zen instruction and sitting.