Japan Day 4, Part 1: Ryoan-ji gardens and Kinkaku-ji Golden Pavilion

In the three years since I traveled in Japan, the binding of my travel journal from Japan came undone and one of the loose pages was lost, meaning that a dayof my journey is now even hazier to recollect. Let this be a lesson in transforming rough notes into full descriptions in a more timely manner.

On the morning of my fourth day in Japan, I cycled out to the hills on Northwest edge of town, instead of to the East as I had been going. On the way I was impressed with a hobo-core quasi-house under a bridge.

Though I would have preferred to start at the Northeastern-most site I was to visit in the day and keep moving West and South, Ryoan-ji opened its gates before Kinkaku-ji, so I reluctantly conceded the need to backtrack. 

This Zen temple begins with large ponds.

The main attraction is a rock garden surrounded by an earthen wall, which itself is completely surrounded by tree-filled gardens.

The occasional buildings had some interesting decorative carvings.

Some of the trees would not look out of place in a Doctor Seuss book.

The massive vines shading parts of the path were impressive.

A bamboo-lined stream captured my ideal of wandering through Japan: seeing ancient human adaptations to the land allowed to become part of the natural setting, making for a peaceful location where both the beauty of nature and the long presence of people can be seen.

After an hour had passed, Kinkaku-ji opened and I cycled over there. A small loop of trail took my past some small gardens and up hill to the Golden Pavilion itself. Well, the replica. The original lasted from 1397 until 1950, when a monk obsessed with the building burned it down. The replica was made to be exactly the same. Presumably the reflecting pool and gardens are contiguous with the originals.