Flash Tourism in Kyoto - Part IV

at the southern end of Kyoto Imperial Gardens

Immediately, I decided it was time to leave Ryouanji and move on to other sites.  This time I took the path straight out of the main hall: elegant stone steps brought me through more peak foliage, and I made my way to the main gate, where I thanked the man with the clipboard and turned left towards the road.  The stop for the bus back to Kyoto was a bit beyond where I had disembarked earlier.  This allowed me to walk past a dark, dense Buddhist cemetery hidden behind a fence on my left.  I wondered how old the graves were, if this cemetery was even part of Ryouanji, and if so, was this obscure, modest place where the seven Hosokawa Emperors were buried?  While I waited for the bus, I pushed my face up to the fence and cupped my hands around my eyes to block out the sun, but still, I couldn’t see much.  There were a few nondescript gravestones, some altars and miniature shrines for burning incense, and what I can only describe as a moai, among thick forest, like some scene from a Miyazaki Hayao film.

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Flash Tourism in Kyoto - Part III

A salaryman contemplates the Zen sand gardens at Ryouanji.

The land that is now Ryouanji was originally an estate of the Fujiwara clan, which married into the imperial line and dominated Japanese politics from roughly 794 to 1185.  Hosokawa Katsumoto controlled the property during the Ounin Civil War from 1467 to 1477, which ushered in the Japanese Warring-States Period that eventually ended in the Tokugawa Shogunate around 1600.  The Fujiwara estate was destroyed in the Ounin War, and Hosokawa Katsumoto declared in his will that it be converted to a Zen Buddhist temple.  Seven Hosokawa emperors are buried on the property.

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Flash Tourism in Kyoto - Part II

roof of the entrace to Ryouanji

I boarded the night bus for Kyoto at 19:30 in Sendai, an hour north of my residence in Fukushima: one-way cost 7,800 yen, a major improvement over the 10,500 yen fare from Fukushima.  I noticed immediately there was no bathroom on the bus, which ruled-out massive consumption of coffee or beer to stave off the boredom of an eleven-hour ride.  Accordingly, the bus was kept hot and dry, like the cabin for an international flight: customers who don’t use the bathroom are good customers, but they’re also customers who wake up with heat stroke and solidified green boogers stuck to their faces.

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Flash Tourism in Kyoto - Part I

Beyond those trees lies Kyoto's Imperial PalaceInternational air travel is a totally mind-fucking experience without cause or mercy, for which the human psyche has evolved nothing to cope: drive a few hours to the airport, sit in a chair in a cramped room at ten-thousand feet, be served a mediocre meal, watch a few movies to fight the boredom and restlessness, look out your window occasionally to see nondescript white masses of clouds or nameless mountain ranges, take a nap, and wake up at the center of an another civilization.

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