I've been having a hard time writing here lately. Mostly, it's formatting laziness. Sorry. Yesterday, the Hanrahan men and I went to Kyoto. After much internet research, I found a walking tour which would take us to several famous temples and shrines, a few museums and various other exciting places.
It was supposed to take 5 hours, but we spent about 6 hours and only got through half of it. First, we went to Sanjusangendo, which is absolutely amazing. It is the longest wooden building in Japan, built in 1164 and then again 200 years later. There are 1001 of these nearly identical statues and 28 different statues in front. In the center is a giant buddha. Photography was strictly prohibited (this picture is from
this website which seems to no longer function anyhow), so I couldn't get any more detailed or interesting pictures. Suffice it to say that this was absolutely breathtaking. The most amazing thing is that these statues were not cast metal. They were carved in wood and covered in gold foil.
Each face is different, they are different heights. None of the guidebooks made a big deal out of this one, but we all agreed that it was the coolest thing we saw all day. The grounds of the temple were fairly average. There was a nice pond with very large koi in it. Here's a picture of Mike looking at the fish. I thought I'd read somewhere that the koi here were 60-years-old, but now I can't find anything about that. I might be confused. This last picture is from the grounds around the temple. This is a shrine. I'm not entirely sure what you're supposed to do here. I saw some people washing their hands in the water. At other shrines, I've seen people tossing the water at plants or statues, but they weren't doing that here. Basically, I'm ignorant. You can see Mike in the background.
It was supposed to take 5 hours, but we spent about 6 hours and only got through half of it. First, we went to Sanjusangendo, which is absolutely amazing. It is the longest wooden building in Japan, built in 1164 and then again 200 years later. There are 1001 of these nearly identical statues and 28 different statues in front. In the center is a giant buddha. Photography was strictly prohibited (this picture is from this website which seems to no longer function anyhow), so I couldn't get any more detailed or interesting pictures. Suffice it to say that this was absolutely breathtaking. The most amazing thing is that these statues were not cast metal. They were carved in wood and covered in gold foil. 
Each face is different, they are different heights. None of the guidebooks made a big deal out of this one, but we all agreed that it was the coolest thing we saw all day. The grounds of the temple were fairly average. There was a nice pond with very large koi in it. Here's a picture of Mike looking at the fish. I thought I'd read somewhere that the koi here were 60-years-old, but now I can't find anything about that. I might be confused. This last picture is from the grounds around the temple. This is a shrine. I'm not entirely sure what you're supposed to do here. I saw some people washing their hands in the water. At other shrines, I've seen people tossing the water at plants or statues, but they weren't doing that here. Basically, I'm ignorant. You can see Mike in the background.
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