Day 2: Ginkaku-ji

A map showing Kyōto Station and Ginkaku-ji. Ginkaku-ji is about four miles from the station. The map zoomed in on Ginkaku-ji. The street that leads up to the temple is highlighted as well.

We'd both been to Kyōto before, and we didn't have much time there. Kyōto is known in part for its amazing temples, and we wanted to revisit a couple of them.

Kyōto's buses are pretty convenient for tourists, and there are several lines that specifically stop at the major tourist attractions. You can get a one or two day pass that gives you unlimited travel on all of the city's buses.

We hopped on a bus and headed north a bit to Ginkaku-ji, The Silver Pavilion.

Many of the temples are nestled in the hills around the city. From one of the main roads you walk up narrow streets lined with food and souvenir shops to the top, where the temple sits.

A narrow street climbs up to tree-covered hills in the distance. Souvenir and food shops line both sides of the road, crowded with tourists.

I love Kyōto's textures.

We walked through the neighborhood to the temple at the top.

An outdoor light fixture, shaped like a lantern, sits on the tiled room of a building. Behind it, the white finish of a wall is peeling off revealing the stone structure behind it.

Ava walks through the simple Chinese-style gate to the temple grounds.

One of the first things you see when you walk through the gate to the temple grounds is a dry garden of white sand. To the right is a Kōgetsudai, a flat-topped cone about six feet tall. The rest of the nearly two acre garden, Ginshaden, is raked into straight lines. The garden is said to be designed to reflect the light of the moon.

A white sand garden surrounded by green trees. The sand is raked into two forms. On the right, a flat-topped cone. To the left, a flat expanse broken by straight lines of mounded sand.

Unfortunately, Ginkaku-ji itself was under restoration. Many temples in the city are currently being restored and renovated.

The temple was never actually covered in silver. In many ways it's a bit unimpressive, especially if you've seen Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, a magnificent structure covered in gold leaf and one of Kyōto's highlights. But we didn't come here for the pavilion.

Canvas-covered scaffolding standing next to the temple. The temple, a two story pagoda of wood, sits across a still pond. The lower level of the building has been gutted, and temporary crossbeams supporting the structure are visible.

You can climb up the hills on the back of the temple's grounds to get a view of Kyōto.

And what a view it is.

Kyōto's Kamigyō ward extends into the distance. The city skyline is almost unnaturally flat, and broken often by green treetops. The temple grounds, including the sand garden, are visible in the foreground below.