Japan day 11
Back in Kyoto, where I had slept, I first set out for Kinkaku-ji. A three-storied Buddhist temple located near a pond and surrounded by a finely cultivated Japanese garden. The name literally means “The Golden Pavilion” and that’s not exaggerating as the to upper stories were covered in gold leaf. It was incredibly shiny and it seemed almost supernatural with so much gold. The building itself wasn’t open for visitors, though, but that was mostly understandable given the number of tourists and the delicacy of the structure.
Next, I visited the Royoan-ji temple, most famous for its zen garden. It was a walled of rectangular area mostly covered by finely raked white gavel with a handful of small grassy “islands” adorned with about a dozen of rocks in total. That doesn’t make a lot of sense when put into words, but it did make sense. It was relaxing and not too crowded when I was there. It was impressive how much they had accomplished with something so simple and humble.
Finally, I made my way for Kameyama Park, but on the way I cut through a small residential alley and found a middle-aged woman selling octopus balls, takoyaki. Those are like a savory “æbleskiver” and with pieces of octopus in the batter. Nice! I’d wanted to try those, and while they weren’t anything special they were at least decent.
The aforementioned park, which I eventually made my way to was home to a grove of tall bamboo, as in ten-ish meters. Which was cool enough but nothing special.
