4 June 2016
From one UNESCO World Heritage site to another. After visiting Arashiyama and the UNESCO World Heritage Tenryu-ji Temple, we went to the Golden Pavilion or Kinkaku-ji Temple. It was registered as a UNESCO World (Cultural) Heritage site in 1994.
We followed the directions given at the Saga Arashiyama Station and took the JR train to Enmachi Station. From there, we decided to take a taxi that brought us directly to Kinkaku-ji’s front entrance instead of taking a public bus.
The Kinkaku-ji temple is also known as the Rokuon-ji Temple, which is its formal name. The main attraction at the site is the Kinkaku or Golden Pavilion, one of the icons of Kyoto. It is actually a hall containing the relics of Buddha.
Entrance Fee: 400 Yen per person.
We were given the above as a form of tickets at the entrance. These did not look like a normal ticket to an attraction. I believe it is some form of amulet for visitors.
There was a sign with what looked like the 5 “commandments” (in Japanese) on a wooden panel at the entrance. Hopefully, someone can translate this to me in the comments section of this post.
The golden pavilion is located quite near to the main entrance. The place was crowded and everyone had the same thing in mind, i.e. get a photo of the golden pavilion, with and without themselves in the pictures. Although there were many people, there was order and we managed to get pictures of the main star attraction.
This was the best place to photograph the Golden Pavilion across the pond, with its image reflecting from the pond’s surface. I guess everyone would have very similar looking photos.
After getting their fill of photos, visitors would move to the side and rear of the pavilion to get a closer look. According to the brochure given to me at the entrance, gold foil on lacquer covers the upper two floors of Kinkaku, and a shining phoenix stands on top of the shingled roof.
The first level is built in the shinden style of the 11th Century imperial aristocracy; the second level is in the buke style of the warrior or samurai aristocracy and the top level is in the Chinese zenshu-butsuden style. In other words, the building has an identity crisis. One thing in common, it is in beautiful gold colour that shone in the afternoon sun and made very pretty pictures.
The site also featured several other buildings and garden that was not too interesting. The main star was the golden temple and once we had been there, saw that, it was time to leave.
We took a taxi back to Enmachi Station and then got on a JR train back to Kyoto Station and our hotel. We had checked out of the Ibis Kyoto Station Hotel in the morning and left our main luggage with the hotel while we travel with overnight bags to Hiroshima and Miyajima for the next two days.
Our plan for the evening would be to travel to Hiroshima via Shin-Osaka Station.
More about our travel to Hiroshima and visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in the next post.
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