Natural places abound in this city of a million and half people. The ancient capitol of Japan has volcanic hills and mountains cut through with streams and rivers. At the top of a preserved historic street of Arashiyama is the ancient Buddhist temple Adashino Nenbutsu-ji, and then above that you can walk through a bamboo forest.

Next to the neighbor’s house where I grew up in Florida was dense bamboo thicket. We walked through several bamboo gardens and forests in Japan which transported me back to seeing the immense grasses towering above me as a child. Here though, I could play with my camera and try to recreate a Japanese print.

After walking through bamboo and visiting the gardens, graves and memorials above, we returned to the Adashino Nenbutsu-ji temple. By the temple is Sai-no-kawara, the riverbed of souls which is between the pure land and this world. Funeral rites have been performed here for millennia. The temple began in the 8th century when the Buddhist monk Kukai began placing stone statues for the dead here.

Perhaps that river to separate the souls flows through the mountains above.

Tenryu-ji is one of five major Zen Mountain temples. The view from the porch of the temple is Sogenchi Pond and the garden surrounding it. Designed by Muso Soseki over 800 years ago, the garden was the first designated Special Historical Scenic Spot of Japan. It is a “borrowed garden” meaning it incorporates the landscape behind.

Sogen means “source of life".” Emperor Saga first founded a temple here around the year 800. Today, it is one of the seventeen (!!!) UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Kyoto. As I viewed the whole scene, Dan spotted a Japanese Little Egret fishing in the Sogen. Again, I was taken back to Florida and the nearly identical Snowy Egret that lives there. Both have the wispy plumage and the yellow feet, sometimes called golden slippers, which is the easy way to identify them. (If they’ll show you.)

So where to next?

Kyoto Gardens

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