As I said on the first page, I went to Kyoto for three days with my brother James.

Here is the Sanmon gate of the first temple we saw in Kyoto, The Nanzen-ji (Southern Zen). This temple was built in the late 13th century as a retirement home for emperor Kameyama.

Most of the bigger shrines have a Sanmon gate, but this one was the most impressive one we saw with a shrine in the upper level.

Here is a painting we saw in the main part of the temple. The subjext in the painting looks vaguely like a tiger, but is actually a dragon. You can also see a bit of the temple's garden.

Here is a little waterfall visible from the tearoom where had some green tea, some proper ceremony tea which really is green. I didn;t really like it, but James did.

After leaving the Nanzenji we later discovered a small temple which had some relatively extensive gardens. This little statue looks like it might be the Busshist equivalent of Neptune.

We went to the Daitoku-ji ('Temple of Great Virtue'), a collection of 22 sub- temples. At this, and many other shrines, there were statuetts dressed in red bibs.

Here are some pyramids in one of the rock gardens at the Daisen-in, the abbot's quarters at the Daitoku-ji. The zen monks like rock and sand gardens because they do not vary through the seasons, the give the monks a sense of the calm of eternity.

The rock gardens at the Daisen-in are National treasures, however I preferred the ones at another of the sub-temples, the Zuhon-in. This rock garden is called 'The garden of the Blissful Mountain'. Rock represent mountians and the sand represents the sea. Metaphorically, the sea is the sea of sinful humanity.

Here is the Kinkaku-ji 'The temple of the Golden Pavillion'. This actually a replica of the temple built in 1950, 5 years after it had been burned down by one of the priests. The original was built in 1394 as a retirement home for the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. Following Yoshimitsu's wishes, his son converted into a temple after his death and called it the rokuon-ji. On the original temple, only the top storey was covered in gold leaf.

I recomend that you click on this photo

We went for a walk on Mt. Hiei, an 850m tall mountain that lies to the northwest of Kyoto.

We ascended by cable car, by the way.

There is a collection of temples on the mountain. Here is the largest the, Enryaku-ji. In the 11th century, there were over 3000 temple buildings on Mt. Hiei which had been built to protect the city of Heian Kyo (now Kyoto) from evil sprirts. They were all burned down in 1571 bt General Nobunaga. The temple was re-established in the 17th century, but with rather fewer buildings.

There was a very large bell at the Enryaku-ji. The temptation to ring it was too great.

We visited Nijo castle. This was built in 1603 as a residence for the shogun Tokogawa Ieyasu. It doesn;t have battlements an spiral staircases like the medeaval castles of England.

Many of the walls and ceilings on the inside were painted by the influential artist of the early 17th century Kano Tanyu and his pupils. The castle was my favourite site in Kyoto becasue of these paintings.
There are many hidden rooms in the castle from which visitors could be observed for signs of treachery. Also, the castle contains 'Nightingale floors', wooden floors which squeak when stepped as to deter assassins from approaching the shogun in the middle of the night.

I went to Hakone for a day, a mountainous region to the southwest of Tokyo. I spent most of the day travelling; on trains, buses, boats and cablecars.

I had a look at the Open-air museum, near the hikers' town of Gora. This fountain was outside the main entrance. The thing in the centre rotated as the water landed on its sails.
Or maybe there was a motor underneath rotating it.

There were plenty odd-looking 'abstract' sculptures, the type that you either love or hate. I sort-of-like some of them, which means previous statement was nonsense.

I quite like these globes, but I'm not certain if they represent anything.

But what on earth is this?

A pile of ........ (choose your substance)

There were some more regular scupltures though, such as this cute little soldier.

I like looking at this one as well. Not just because it's a bit naughty (:-)) but because I think the cedars give it a ncice background.

I hope the artist who sculpted these rabbits was just using his imagination, rather than copying real rabbits in this pose after denying them food for a week.

Some plump looking Japanese boatmen.

There was quite an interesting Picasso gallery of paintings and sulptures at this museum. There was quite an impressive minotaur tapestry. Unfortunately phography was prohibited in there.

Following the museum I took a cable car and gondola to get to Owakudani Gorge.


That is a fine photograph, isn't it?

The main attraction here is the volcano with the smelly fumes. Hydrogen sulphide is the smelly (and toxic) gas in question. It's the rotten egg gas.

They are cooked in this bath. It looks though there's a pipe feeding water in, but it the heat from the volcano that boils it.

There are a lot of ferns and other plants living on the volcano that can cope with the lack of oxygen in the soil. No cedars or cherry trees here.

Not in that boat though, but this green one, a vague replica of Swedish gunship of a few centuries ago. It would have looked good if the sails outfolded themselves, but they didn't.

The Lake is banked by mountains and lots of cherry trees. It I was bi unfortunate as there was a lot of cloud over the lake, covering much of the view. On a clear day it is possible to see Mt. Fuji and its reflection on the lake; a view which, according to one of my guidebooks, is considered by the Japanese to be the most beautiful in Japan. It inplies that all Japanese think that, which probably isn't the case.... As it urned out, it felt more like ghostship voyage.

There seems to a red torii near the adge of the water.

Here is the Kannon-do hall which contains the 11-headed Kannon, a 9.18 meters tall. An impressive statue it is, but I was unable to take a photograph of it.
Two wooden staues of Kannon were made in 721 by Reverend Tokudo-Shonin from a single log of camphor wood. One of them was thrown into the sea with a prayer, such that it help them on reappearing(?) Sixteen years later it  washed up on Nagai beach off Miura. It was transported to Kamakura and introduced into the temple that Tokudo-Shonin happened to be building, the Hasedera temple. In 1342 the shogun Ashikaga Takakuji had gold leaf applied to it.

I rather liked the little plants and little statues on the temple grounds, like the ones shown below.

This is the Kyozo, the sutra archive. The sutras are stored in the rinzo, the wooden racks you see which can easily be rotated. It is said that by rotating the rinzo one can earn the same merit as reading all of the sutras. I think I know which option I'd choose.

This temple has a cave, the Benten-do, the home of Benzaiten (eight-armed god) and his 16 children. I think the little statue on the right one of the children.

  I then went to the most famous temple in Kamakura, the Kotokuin temple. However there isn't much temple left as it was destroyed by a tidal wave in the 14th century, it was only wooden structure anyway. However some of the contents still survive. In particular, this 10 metre high bronze cast Buddha statue, the Daibutsu.

Here's another view of it.

Here's a view you won't see in any magazine. I don't know what those windows a for. Perhaps you attached some wheels you could hide soldiers inside and call ir a 'Trojan Buddha'

Following a walk through the woods I came to the Zeniarai Benten Shrine was was cut into a cliff. It had a lot of torii at its entrance.

It is colloquially known as the money-washing shrine. If you pay 500 yen, you can put some money in a wicker bowl, wash it, wish for financial success and allow it to dry.

But you have to pay to do it.

My final visitng point in Kamakura was the Engaku-ji temple. This temple complex was first constructed in the 13th century by the Zen warriorTokimune Hojo. He built it spread the way if Zen and to hold a mass for those who had died in the Mongols ' intented invasion of Japan, including the Mogolian soldiers. As was the case with many temples, parts were burnt down before it was restored in the 19th century.

Here is it's Sanmon gate.

The temple complex is long and thin.

Here is the main bit of the temple, the butsuden, which has dragon paintings on its ceiling.

This is the haruroku-do, the white deer cave. It is said that a herd of divine white deer emerged from this cave to hear the sermon on the day the temple was opened.