Temple on a Mountainside, Kyoto

Located in the foothills around Mt. Otowa to the east of Kyoto, Kiyomizu-dera Temple overlooks modern Kyoto. The temple was established in 788 CE during Japan’s Nara period, and affiliated with the venerable Hosso sect of Japanese Buddhism. Today, the monks caring for Kiyomizu-dera belong to the Kita-Hosso sect. Taken from the balcony of one of the smaller halls, this image shows the temple’s Main Hall and the pagoda in the entrance area on the far right with the city of Kyoto in the distance.

The West Gate is in the foreground with the temple’s pagoda directly in back. I am facing due east at 9:00am on an overcast morning. Why I have no photo of the larger, more impressive main gate to Kiyomizu-dera just to the left of where I am standing to take this photo is absolutely beyond me. I do, however, have a photo showing part of the main gate taken from inside the entrance with Kyoto in the distance. To the west, some blue sky has broken through the clouds.

For awhile it appeared that the day would become bright and sunny as the photos of the pagoda above and, below, of the West Gate from inside the entrance to Kiyomizu-dera suggest.

Kiyomizu-dera’s Main Hall sits on a steep incline and is supported by a wooden trellis that sets the building’s platform some 13 meters above the base of the incline below. My photo of the Main Hall does not really do justice to the building itself because I am distracted by the size of the crowd on the platform. It is no surprise that crowds of people want to visit a site like Kiyomizu-dera with its magnificent examples of Japanese temple architecture in a beautiful setting offering breathtaking views of its surroundings. I am taking the photo below at 9:45 in the morning on any old Tuesday in October. The crowd is bound to be larger by midday, and one can only imagine what happens on weekends or holidays. It is no wonder that some locales are instituting reservation systems that allow access at a specific time on a given day for popular sites with high volumes of visitors. If they are not in Japan already I would not be at all surprised to see such reservations systems arriving soon in Kyoto and elsewhere in the country. With literally billions of people able to afford relatively low-cost flights and budget tours, the problem of unsustainable over-tourism is not likely to get better in the foreseeable future.

A short way up the hillside from the main temple area, this small pagoda overlooks the Main Hall. By this time the clouds had returned and there was not much sunshine left. I did not make it all the way to the pagoda, instead turning to head down to the Otowa Waterfall at the base of the incline with the Main Hall at the top. Water is indeed falling from three pipes into a small pool, though Otowa is not what we generally think of as a waterfall. Be that as it may, Wikipedia tells us that Kiyomizu-dera means “pure water temple.” Those who drink a cupful of water from the falls are purified. I decided a single cup was unlikely to meet my needs for purification and kept on walking.

Despite the crowds of people, there were quiet spots and moments of peace for contemplation throughout the temple area.

Packing Heavy Gear, Kyoto, Japan

In May of this year, I bought a mirrorless Nikon Z7 II with a Z-mount 24-200mm zoom attached; this kit weighs in at around 1.2kg. If I swap out the zoom for the Z-mount 40mm prime lens I bought, I drop the weight I have slung around my neck to about 800gm. While the full-frame Z7 II (translation: the camera’s image sensor that records each photo taken is roughly the size of a 35mm film negative) is not a small camera, it is nonetheless noticeably smaller and lighter than the Nikon D750 I used for 8 years preceding my purchase of the Z7 II. Not that I am getting older or anything like that, but the reduction in weight has definitely been a welcome change.

All of that said, I was surprised at the number of people I saw in Japan walking around doing street shooting with enormous zoom lenses attached to their cameras. By way of example: I cannot imagine spending a day carrying around a camera-lens combination as big and heavy as the young woman in the photo is packing. I can’t tell exactly what she has there, but I figure her rig weighs at least 2kg and possibly as much as 3kg. Before you say that isn’t so much, try carrying around that kit for a day of shooting and let me know how your neck feels when you get home. And keep in mind that hand-holding a big zoom lenses like that steady enough to get really sharp images is no easy trick, even with vibration reduction built-in.

Well, as somebody once said: different folks, different strokes.

Inari: Shinto Deity of Sake, Kyoto

The Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto is the principal shrine in Japan for the Shinto deity Inari. In fairness to the deity, I should add that, in addition to being the deity of sake, Inari is also the Shinto spirit for agriculture and rice, and is associated with prosperity and worldly success. The shrine was first established in 711 CE, but it was one hundred years later that it moved to its current location. The entrance to the shrine area is on the outskirts of Kyoto at the base of a small mountain, the peak of which is 233 meters about sea level. The shrine’s main buildings are located near the entrance, and beyond this area are several trails leading from the entrance to the summit of the mountain with a number of smaller shrines to Inari along the paths.

The photo at the top of the page shows the main entrance to the shrine—the Romon or Two-Storied Gate. The Romon faces west and, as I approach, glows in the late afternoon sun of a dazzling October day. Below is the Romon from the other side after passing through the entrance. The shrine’s website (https://inari.jp/en/) notes that the gate was built in 1589 by a powerful samurai and feudal lord (daimyo) named Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

The view of the Romon after walking through the gate; the afternoon sun is directly behind the building.

I arrived at Fushimi Inari Taisha shortly after four in the afternoon. Already a bit worn out from a long day, I walked around the main shrine area near the entrance, but did not make it to the top of the mountain. Fushimi Inari Taisha is, perhaps, best known for the Senborn Torii, more than 800 brightly painted vermilion torii placed close together and forming a sort of tunnel that winds part of the way up the mountain. Altogether, there are thousands of torii donated by worshipers in the main shrine area and along the paths leading to the top of the mountain. (For more about torii: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torii.) I had planned to walk through the Senborn Torii, but when I got to the beginning of the walkway and saw the crowd of people already walking inside, I changed my mind. Not much tranquility or peace of mind to be found on that walk, or so it seemed to me.

The entrance to the Senborn Torii.
The Senborn Torii.

All of the shrines and temples I visited in Japan were beautifully preserved and diligently cared for; Fushimi Inari Taisha was no exception. The first of the images that follow is of the Honden—the Main Shrine. I tried to get a closer, more revealing view of this building, but each time I composed a photo one or more visitors planted themselves in such a way that they blocked a key part of the composition. It had already been a long day, and after a few tries, I settled for the photo I had and moved on.

The Honden—the Main Shrine
Probably the Gonden—I have no information about this building near the entrance of the Inari shrine.
I’m going with an incense burner until someone tells me otherwise.
The Hall of Shinto Music and Dance
The Divine Horse House

Around 5:30 or so both of my feet put themselves down and said, “Enough is enough, time to go.” I was dragging, and it was indeed time to head back to my hotel. After walking through the Two-Storied Gate headed for the metro stop, I turned for a final look at Fushimi Inari Taisha. What I saw was a lot of people many of whom were also on their way out, and in the background, the roof of the old guard house next to the main gate.

Visitors come and go at the entrance to the Shinto shrine Fushimi Inari Taisha.

I turned away and headed in the direction of the metro down the narrow street full of people and lined with shops.

This narrow street eventually ends at the entrance to Japan Rail’s Inari station.

To-ji, an Ancient Kyoto Temple

Early Monday morning, my first day in Kyoto, I set out on foot, walking to the To-ji Temple about 2km from my hotel. To-ji was established in 796 CE shortly after Japan’s imperial capital moved to Kyoto from Nara. It was one of only three temples allowed in the new capital city.

The buildings in the temple compound, built of wood that was darkly stained, were magnificent. Though the designs of the buildings are similar to temples I have seen in China, I have come across nothing comparable to this unpainted, natural wood style in temples elsewhere in the region. The photo above is of the Kondo, To-ji’s Main Hall. The original structure in this location was destroyed by fire; this reconstruction was completed in 1603. One of the pieces I read about To-ji says the Kondo incorporates elements of an Indian temple design style.

I choose this temple, in part, because I could walk to the site. The main Kyoto rail station that was near my hotel is the city’s transportation hub. Not only does it offer bullet train service to other parts of Japan, there are also half a dozen or maybe more urban rail systems that originate in or pass through Kyoto station. The place is enormous and both the station and the surrounding area are crowded with people, as I discovered when I arrived in the city late on a Sunday afternoon. I did not feel like figuring out how to navigate the city’s public transit system, with its multiple providers, to get to another site on a dazzling October morning. A quick check of Google Maps indicated To-ji Temple was in easy walking distance, and a quick look at Wikipedia suggested it was worth a visit. Both were correct.

The southern gate of To-ji that opens directly in front of the Main Hall is another impressive natural wood structure. To-ji rendered in Japanese, as seen on the two white lanterns, is 東寺, which means “east temple.” The two characters have the same meaning in Chinese, though the words in the two spoken languages do not sound the same at all. At one time there was a “west temple” near To-ji, but it was destroyed at some point in the past.

The Kodo or the Lecture Hall sits behind the Main Hall. The first building on this site was completed in the 9th century CE. The present Lecture Hall, which retains the design of the original was completed in 1491.

I arrived at To-ji Temple a bit before 8 in the morning; it was a beautiful day, a delightful opportunity to stroll the grounds when there was virtually nobody else around. The Main Hall and the Lecture Hall are fenced off, you cannot get close to them without a ticket, something I did not realize when I walked into the compound. I eventually found a ticket office and bought a ticket that gave me access to a garden with a five story pagoda in its midst, and the main temple buildings. Upon entering the ticketed area, I immediately went down a rabbit hole that I hoped would lead me to a vantage point that allowed me to photograph the pagoda without shooting directly into the morning sun at the same time. I failed; the vantage point for morning color photography was to the south outside of the compound.

After I settled for some disappointing shots of the pagoda, I left To-ji and headed back towards the train station area. Having purchased a ticket that gave me access to the central temple compound, why I left when I did instead of doubling back and taking a closer look at the main temple buildings is absolutely beyond me. This trip convinced me that my approach to the kind of travel photography I like is too erratic and undisciplined. More research in advance of going to a site I may very well only visit once would help me walk away with a folder of photos that has a chance of capturing what the site is about.

Back at home in the digital darkroom, I eventually gave up trying to process color images of the pagoda. With the sun more or less in my face, I could bring out virtually no detail at all of the building itself. It was just undifferentiated shadow. I got better results when I converted the images to black and white.

Saturday Night Out and About, Tokyo

This walking street near Ueno Station in Tokyo is crowded with people looking for a good dinner and a good time on a Saturday night. A great place to spend my final night in Tokyo before heading to Kyoto the next day.

I have been taking a lengthy, unwelcome break from editing photos due to a contorted muscle in my hip that makes a nearby nerve unhappy, the result being eye-opening pain in my left leg. For those interested, the malady is called piriformis syndrome. Although I am still struggling with this miserable affliction, I have decided to get back to working on the folder brimming with photos from my October trip to Japan.

Sushi for Breakfast, Anyone?

The man in the photo is getting ready for the day’s business, cutting fresh tuna to be sold as sashimi to people who visit his small stall in Tokyo’s Tsukiji Outer Market. The only way to get all of what he was doing in a single photo would have been to stand directly in front of him and get right in his face. These days I am not as inclined as I used to be to get on top of people with a camera, so I settled for two images to tell the story.

At one time, the Tsukiji Market was Tokyo’s largest wholesale fish and seafood market, a place where freshly caught fish was auctioned off or sold to retail buyers every day in the early morning. Around the commercial market there were food stalls and small restaurants serving some of the freshest sashimi and sushi in Tokyo. For those who liked Japanese style fish for breakfast, Tsukiji Market was the place to go.

A few years ago, in 2018 if I am not mistaken, the wholesale market moved to a new location in Tokyo, leaving behind the food stalls, restaurants, and market stands selling everything from fish and fresh fruits and vegetables to kitchen utensils and household goods that had grown up outside of the buildings where the wholesale market conducted its business. The area was renamed the Tsukiji Outer Market. Today, it is a destination for tourists, both domestic and foreign, looking for good eats and a Tokyo slice of life, as well as for local shoppers doing their marketing.

Some of the eateries had people stationed outside cajoling visitors to try their offerings. There were lines waiting to get served at some places. My thoughts about choosing a place to eat among dozens of choices I am unfamiliar with in a market I’ve never been to before: Walk around, look at the choices, pick one that looks decent. Yes, I do sometimes read customer reviews but am skeptical because too often I see “the best food I had on my trip” followed by “what a dump, worst meal ever.” As for lines, I am very much of the opinion that it makes no sense whatsoever to stand in line at one place because a YouTube “influencer,” someone whom I neither know or care about and who quite possibly is an absolute moron, told me that particular place is special and better than the other places. As for the people who are influenced to stand in line, all I can say is thank you. When I do decide to take a chance on a place that looks appealing, it is less likely to be crowded with people because you are waiting in line elsewhere.

Be all that as it may, I eventually went into a small restaurant that had a menu in the window and nobody outside with a sales pitch. The place had a good feel about it, and that was enough to recommend it. The sushi chef behind the counter served up a delicious selection of sushi and an exotic Japanese mushroom fried in tempura batter. I’d been lucky and picked a winner; I left the restaurant feeling full and satisfied.

One thing it never occurred to me I would see at a market famous for fresh seafood were booths selling Japanese wagyu beef on skewers. I had come to Tsukiji for sushi, and did not pay much attention to these booths or the prices they were charging. It was only after looking at the image below on my computer at home that I checked and discovered ¥5000 is equal to a bit more than $32. Yikes! That’s a hefty price tag for what appears to be a skewer with less than 100gms (about 3.5oz) of meat. On the other hand, I had checked online for restaurants serving Kobe beef dinners and learned that prices for dinners serving the genuine item started around $150, and went up – a long way up – from there. A small skewer grilled by a shop in Tsukiji would have been a relatively inexpensive way to sample this delicacy, but I was not thinking in those terms, and passed on by.

For those with a sweet tooth or looking for dessert after sushi, there were a number of alternatives. Some of the offerings were tempting, but I was full from breakfast. The women in this photo are looking at large strawberries set into pastry shells filled with several kinds of sweet concoctions. I wonder where these women are from. The lady furthest away could be from pretty much anywhere in East or SE Asia, but the woman in the middle is difficult to peg.

I had arrived at Tsukiji Outer Market at around eight on a sunny Saturday morning. There were people walking around taking a look, but the place was not crowded. By the time I finished my sushi breakfast some time after 9am, the market had filled up with people and the lanes lined with shops were packed. It was time to move on.

Senso-ji: a Buddhist Masterpiece

The venerable Senso-ji Buddhist temple (officially Kinryū-zan Sensō-ji (金龍山浅草寺)) is located in the Asakusa area of downtown Tokyo. The photo above (follow the link for more of this beautiful compound) shows Hozomon (the Treasure House Gate) that provides an entrance to the main temple; it is flanked by Senso-ji’s five story pagoda on the left.

Founded in 645 CE, Senso-ji is the oldest established temple in Tokyo. The temple is dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon (観音菩薩), called Guanyin in Chinese; this beloved Buddhist deity is associated with compassion. Senso-ji is one of Japan’s most important Buddhist temples and one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions. In fact the Wikipedia entry for Senso-ji informs us that “it is the most widely visited religious site in the world with over 30 million visitors annually.” For what it is worth, there was no shortage of visitors on the day I went.

Tourists who have arrived at Senso-ji before the crowds line up to take photos in front of Kaminarimon

The first gate, the street side entrance that one passes through on the way to the inner compound, is Kaminarimon (the Thunder Gate) . When I arrived at around 8:20 in the morning, tourists were beginning to trickle into the compound. Before heading inside quite a few people were waiting in line along the street for the chance to get an unobstructed photo of themselves standing dead center in front of the gate. There were a few solo travelers taking selfies, but it was mostly couples who would switch off, each taking two or three photos of their mate. A few people got a bit carried away, but the line remained orderly and people were impeccably polite. It was actually rather charming to watch. The photo below is the same scene as seen from inside the gate just before I turned my back and set off towards Hozomon.

The view of tourist lined up for photos from inside Kaminarimon

It is worth noting that none of the buildings one sees today within the large compound date back to the temple’s founding. The temple area was leveled in a March, 1945, bombing raid towards the end of WWII. Today’s buildings are reconstructions completed for the most part in the 1950s and 1960s. Wartime destruction was not the first time parts of Senso-ji were devastated; buildings within the compound have been destroyed by fire on numerous occasions during the 1700 years of Senso-ji’s existence.

Hozomon from the front or south face.
Hozomon from the rear or north face.

The two images above are both of Hozomon, the second of the gates between the entrance to the compound and the main temple of Senso-ji. In the first, I am facing the front of the gate as I walk towards the main temple. It is about 8:30am and the October sun is still fairly low in the sky behind my right shoulder. I took the second image from the top of the steps leading into the main temple. This side of the gate faces north; the sun is in front of me and to my left. Though it does not bring me level with the roof, my elevation shows how steep that roof is, and how it dominates the building below it.

I have lived in East and Southeast Asia for some 35 years now and have visited lots of Buddhist temples during those years, in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and now Japan. Some of these have been large, wealthy and well-known, some draw crowds of tourists, but many have been small and unknown to all but the monks and nuns that call them home and the devout Buddhists that they serve. Buddhist temples and pagodas in Japan are similar in some respects to their counterparts in China, but Japanese design is strikingly different in other ways. The roofs of the buildings, in particular, are very steep and they project out quite far from the actual building. Japanese multi-storied pagodas like the one in Senso-ji are unique, I have seen nothing like them elsewhere in my travels. I am not familiar with the terminology used to describe architectural designs and features, so it is best to let the photos speak for themselves.

The magnificent five story pagoda at Senso-ji.
Decorative door art at Senso-ji.
The main temple at Senso-ji.

I am disappointed in myself that I do not have more images of the main temple building and the area around it. One of the lessons of this and other visits to well-known destinations in Japan is that my approach as a photographer to these places needs to be better organized and more disciplined. As I look through the folder of Senso-ji images, I not only see what is there, but also a number of images that are missing.

By the time I left Senso-ji shortly after 11am, any semblance of order at the Kaminarimon gate had disappeared as crowds of visitors headed inside to see the temple compound.

Being the world’s most visited religious site has its drawbacks, or so it seems to me.