Our school has peculiar holidays so the first half of my trip fell on a weekend.
Unfortunately that meant that my first tour was on a Saturday and thus Kyoto Imperial Palace was closed. (Prissy nobility.)Instead we went to
Nishi Hongwanji (title as per the pamphlet.)
This is still an active site of worship but we were allowed to take pictures providing that there was not servicess in progress or people praying.
After I marvelled at the monk in full regalia (- he had a head full of stylishly waxed hair! Very surprising) we had to remove our shoes and put them in a little plastic bag provided.
So what did I learn - aside from religious bling having no boundaries. =.= Well, aside being one of the largest wooden buildings in the world, this is one of the centres for Zen Buddhism and is appropriately grand and formal. This particular sect was set up and spread largely through the efforts of a monk and his wife. They seem to be concerned with different levels of heaven and how best to achieve the preferred one. Eum, theres' an east one and a west one a central one where Buddha lives that's sort of on top....
It was mightily confusing and, not being a buddhist, I could not really appreciate the subtleties of their dogma as evidence by my vague summary above. Mostly though, I just can't remember.
We sat down here for our lecture and I simply knelt down, foolishly not even thinking when I did other than I didn't want to sprawl over the place like a little kid. The temple was floored with
tatami mats and let me say this. To those who kneel on them on a regular basis - RESPECT. My legs got quite sore very quickly.
After viewing this room we alked across an internal bridge to the next, carrying our bagged shoes. We got another look at the courtyard. That tree is a couple of hundre years old - nice foliage.
Above is the second chamber. I'll admit to being surprised that we could take pictures. I guess they're just not as sacred as I thought. *shrugs*
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