The illumination at Chion-in temple(知恩院, ちおんいん)

I went to the illumination at Chion-in temple, which is very historical and important for a Buddhism sect begun by Honen(法然). It was really nice! When I found a poster about it, I decided to go for that event!

This building is called Sanmon(三門). It is famous as the biggest wooden building in Japan, but actually in the world there's no wooden building bigger than it. It's illuminated looked like golden. 

The paved-stone street and stairs were illuminated by lanterns on the left and right side. When you take a look at your shadow, you will realize it's very black and deep.

Yeah, this area is for the lanterns created by talented artists. They have the skill, which continues from old Japan.

Colored leaves. They were not completely red, and still  have green leaves. The graduation was very beautiful.

When I look up at the trees balanced between the roof of a building and sky, I found the more beautiful gradation.

The bell of that temple. If you hit the bell by the big wooden stick, the loud sound will be echoed. But, it's a job of a monk! X(

It was amazing without any explanation. I can't say anything when I saw the Buddha.

I enjoyed the illumination of Chion-in temple. In this season you can enjoy a lot of illumination events in Kyoto. Kiyomizu-dera temple, Shoren-in temple, Koudai-ji temple, etc etc.

Yes! A great season's come. Enjoy!

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The backpackers hostel in Kyoto is located in its historical district, Gion.
Good access by buses and trains. The center of Kyoto.
Please contact us, if you want to book our hostel.

info@ayado.net

An artificial river in old temple in Kyoto, Nanzen-ji temple

Hi, hi :) I wrote the article about Nanzen-ji temple in Kyoto before. And it was halfway. I'm not a liar. I should write the rest of it.

I wrote "What is this?" about the photo above in that article. Yeah, it's a difficult question. It looks like a tunnel or the series of gateways. 

The answer is that! It's a bridge in fact. You may think "Why is a bridge in a temple?". Well, it's a little bit strange, but has a reason.

On the bridge there's a water way for an artificial river from another prefecture, Shiga(滋賀), which is next to Kyoto. When a civil engineer, Sakuro Tanabe was directed to set up an artificial river connected to Biwa-ko lake(琵琶湖, びわこ) in Shiga prefecture. He chose the best course. On the way from Biwa late to Kamo river(鴨川), there was a very famous temple. Yes, that is Nanzen-ji temple. That's why this temple has a very big water bridge. Sakuro Tanabe is not very famous. You may not find good amount of information of his works on the internet in English or books. But, I'm sure he was a genius. Watch the photo below.

 Passing under the bridge, going up stairs, you will get to the gate way of the temple's building. They are completely harmonious. I love it! Those kind of harmony is a very important part of civil engineering, right?

Nanzen-ji temple was build about 800 years ago, and the water bridge was set up about 100 year s ago. Both are old. You see another harmony, which is belonging to the streaming of time passage. .

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The backpackers hostel in Kyoto is located in its historical district, Gion.
Good access by buses and trains. The center of Kyoto.
Please contact us, if you want to book our hostel.

info@ayado.net

Maple syrup our guest gave us

One of our guests gave us nice present when he checked out.

It's a maple syrup from Canada.
And he put 2 maple leaves on the bottle as the flag of Canada.
This present made us heart-warming.
Because we had really good time with him.

Thank you!!

We will look forward to eating bread with it from now on.

Also the guest gave us it will be going to university in Kyoto next year.
He studied Japanese hard when he was staying here.
We hope that he will enjoy Kyoto's life and sometimes come down here.
And we would like to talk to him in Japanese some day.

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The backpackers hostel in Kyoto is located in its historical district, Gion.
Good access by buses and trains. The center of Kyoto.
Please contact us, if you want to book our hostel.

info@ayado.net

Nanzen-ji temple(南禅寺), a perfect place to hang out

Nanzen-ji temple is really nice because the garden is very large and the admission fee to go inside garden is free. So you can go there to hang out, if you want to just relax and spend easygoing time. And also, if you pay some hundred yen, you can enter the old historical buildings in the temple. They are also great. 

It's the gateway in the photo. You see the characters, which are kanji. It's written "大本山南禅寺", Daihonzan-Nanzen-ji. Daihonzan means one of the special temple of a Buddhism sect. 

Here is one of the best place to take a rest. It's another gateway in that temple. They're not sitting on a bench. It's a wooden threshold of the gateway, yet very nice to sit down. The height is just for you all to sit down! 

One of the main building. Feeling the history of Japan, please take a look. But, sometimes those kind of buildings look just same. Well, if I watch photos of 1000 temples, I can never tell for one from others. That's normal.

But, actually, temples has their own characteristics. That's why we can enjoy every temple one by one.

Oh, oh, what's this? It's one of the characteristic of Nanzen-ji temple. It's in that temple's garden.

I wrote a little too much in this article. So I will show what is this next time when I upload a article. See you then!!

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The backpackers hostel in Kyoto is located in its historical district, Gion.
Good access by buses and trains. The center of Kyoto.
Please contact us, if you want to book our hostel.

info@ayado.net

Horror on Halloween again!

It was on 31st of October. The horror didn't come yet. Because the sky was not so dark, and people were commuting, going along streets, talking and laughing. They didn't know what is going to happen tonight. The 31st of October, Horror of Halloween...

In our living room, our guests were at the ready to go out! They were drawing the blood color on the white masks. They did good jobs. The tears of blood were scaring!!

Somehow they were fighting each other at the entrance of our building. It was also scaring!

And they met other guys! Some of them were in fancy dresses of Santa Claus. And there was one green man, which was an unknown character. Then they went to a bar, and made friends, drunk a lot and had a great fun.

Yeah, that was horror on Halloween! If you want to enjoy a real horror, please forgive me.
Halloween is getting more popular also in Kyoto, Japan. You can enjoy it in this city. Have fun!!
  

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The backpackers hostel in Kyoto is located in its historical district, Gion.
Good access by buses and trains. The center of Kyoto.
Please contact us, if you want to book our hostel.

info@ayado.net

Kyoto horse racing course(京都競馬場）

This picture  is Kyoto race course which is located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto.
It is used for horse racing.
It has a capacity of 120000.

Few weeks ago, one of our staff went to Kyoto horse racing course.
He normally doesn't gamble at all.
But he has been lucky recently.
So he just wanted to try his luck.

But...............Needless to say, he lost his money.
He couldn't win even 1 race.

After finishing every race, he finally realized that it's his misunderstanding about he had been lucky recently.
And he said he never gamble again!!

Everyone, don't be too absorbed when you gamble!!

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The backpackers hostel in Kyoto is located in its historical district, Gion.
Good access by buses and trains. The center of Kyoto.
Please contact us, if you want to book our hostel.

info@ayado.net

A wooden board in Nanzen-ji temple(南禅寺, なんぜんじ)

In Nanzen-ji temple which is famous for colored leaves in autumn, I found the wooden board.

That says "When you go inside the gate, cool breezes come to you". 

I can't translate it properly because it's a haiku(俳句). So it should sound very beautiful.

Beside the wooden board, there's a stone with characters. It says the same thing, and the way to write is kind of calligraphy style.

Yeah, both say that if you go to Nanzen-ji temple and pass through the gate, you will feel special breezes. The temperature is getting low in this season. But, the day time is still hot. Enjoy the breezes in the temple!

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The backpackers hostel in Kyoto is located in its historical district, Gion.
Good access by buses and trains. The center of Kyoto.
Please contact us, if you want to book our hostel.

info@ayado.net