Excusemimasen, have you seen my wabi-sabi?: 05/31/10

Little No-Names

While Thursday proved more successful in the netsuke-retrieval area, my subsequent search for more temples and shrines nearby proved less fruitful.

(Between Xander and Figaro, I think I'm developing a thing about losing an eye...Not a fear exactly, but the thought just strikes me a bit more than it used to. Anyways, I was very thankful that my dragon was given a new eye.)

All the new temples and shrines I passed along my way back towards Kitaoji Station, however, were rather small, and some of them I suspect were perhaps associated outposts or detached offices. None had plaques in front of them with English explanations, so I don't have any history to offer here. I also had to confirm with Japanese students here how to read the shrine and temple names in kanji. That said, there still might be some mistakes about what these places are called, but I've done my best.

The first I found is called Wakamiya Jinja shrine (one of many in Japan, it would seem...)

A sacred pine tree, marked by a shimenawa

This beat-up torii belongs to Fuyashiro Imamiya Jinja Tanobinoshirushi

It looks like they're doing some construction behind the gates...

Walking towards Horikawa-dori

From the architecture, and the lotus-window, my guess is

this building is associated with Buddhism in some way

Detail of the lotus stained-glass window

(Finally walking along Horikawa-dori northwards.)

Beautiful woodwork on a building across from Motoyama Koshoji

Motoyama Koshoji temple, perhaps?

Urban Foxfire

After Unrin-in and Kenkun Jinja, I made use of my all-day bus pass and spent the evening wandering around Shijo and Teramachi. Did a little bit of window-shopping, and actually stopped at a couple of the half-hidden temples along Teramachi street.
(Point of interest--Teramachi literally means "temple town.")

A girl advertising for someplace on one of the side streets of Teramachi-dori

Somehow, I never noticed these No Evil monkeys before.

Nishiki Tenmanguu shrine is among the few which stay open into the evening, past sundown. (Usually these sorts of temples have some kind of night-time illumination if they're open that late.) This is also a shrine dedicated to Tenjin, the scholar Sugawaru no Michizane, the same as Kitano Tenmanguu--only Kitano Tenmanguu shrine is the head of all the Tenjin shrines in Japan.

You can see the cow motif again...

and another fortune-teller machine

Nishiki Tenmanguu at sunset is one of the most enchanting places I've ever set foot in...

The only slightly unfortunate thing I found is that Nishiki Tenmanguu doesn't have anyone qualified to do the shodo for nokyo-cho.

Instead, they sell prints of the stamps that you can glue onto a page...

I ended up buying one anyway...

Anyoji, or Sakarengeji, is particularly popular among women, but because the lotus pedestal was about to break under the main statue, it was turned upside down. Another version of the tale says that the pedestal was turned upside down to save women; in days of old, followers of Buddhism believed the lotus-flower pedestals in women's minds were upside down, which made them too sinful to find Paradise after dying.

Once my stomach got grumbly, I wandered back out to Shijo to pick up some

shaka-shaka chicken as a snack on the way to Book-Off.

One of the contemporary "kimono" looks: polyester, with bright non-traditional designs,

and multiple loose, elaborate obi worn with the bow in the front.

This scene reminds me a little of Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night

Gone Fishing with my Mind

Wednesday I took the bus into town to pick up my netsuke from the shop near Daitokuji, but it turned out they were closed that day.

I probably should have tried calling to make sure, but I'd lost their number, and I wasn't entirely certain the who the unfamiliar number was in my missed calls log. As the shop being closed was something of a deterrent to my original plan, I instead found myself glancing at the map on the nearest bus stop looking for nearby shrines or temples. The first little temple I actually found just by looking across the street from the corner of Daitokuji.

Unrin-in is quite small and dates to the Heian period. Originally it was a part of a villa called Murasakino-in built by Emperor Junna in the early 800s, but it was later converted to a temple in 869. It doesn't seem like there's much left of the villa actually, or perhaps it just looks different. The sign out front indicated the hall dedicated to Kannon was rebuilt in 1707, so it's very possible parts of the villa burned down over the course of history.

I double-checked the bus stop map once more, and from Unrin-in I started meandering through hushed, peaceful residential streets in a southwesterly direction.
The journey to Kenkun Jinja was brief (but not too brief) and pensive. I'm finding more and more that wandering the residential areas of Kyoto is a calming experience, and a kind of beautiful sight-seeing in and of itself.

residential area surrounding Funaoka Hill

alstroemeria and raccoon-dog

Before I came around the hill from the north, the first mysterious glimpse I caught of the shrine were the bright red fences tucked into the lush greenery.
Kenkun Jinja, also called Takeisao Jinja, was built in 1869 during the Meiji era, first at the bottom of Funaoka Hill. Later they moved it to its present location at the top of the hill.

Kenkun Jinja is dedicated to the posthumously deified daimyo Oda Nobunaga. A couple of centuries prior to the founding of the shrine, Funaoka Hill was designated as as Nobunaga's graveyard. The treasures kept at the temple include his armor as well as the sword belonging to his enemy Imagawa Yoshimoto.

After climbing stairs and stairs--and still more stairs--up to the top of the hill, I discovered the main shrine grounds, nearly deserted. One man came by to offer a prayer during my entire visit. The only other person I saw was one of the caretakers, perhaps a priest, behind a sliding screen door in one of the shrine office rooms. When I asked him if the shrine was closed, he told me it was, but perhaps he meant it was closed for official shrine business...He was still kind enough to sign and stamp my nokyo-cho anyway.

While the view of Kyoto from the top of Funaoka Hill isn't exactly comprehensive, it was a wonderful, soft pause, with the darkening clouds, the splashes of blue, and the shadow-play on Hiei-zan and the city below.