kyoto - northern higashiyama

kyoto - northern higashiyama

• 17 Jun 2015

Much as I don't enjoy getting sick, it did give me some downtime. I spent my sick days languishing in bed with my laptop working on my photos of Kyoto. Kyoto is such a photogenic place I took loads of photos so narrowing the selection was a bit of a challenge. As there were so many photos, I'll split the images across a number of posts. 




I spent Day 1 in the Northern Higashiyama area as that was where I was staying. I started the day early and arrived at my first destination, the Nanzen-Ji Temple, before opening hours.





This is the imposing main gate





with it's massive doors.





Nanzen-Ji is a Zen Buddhism temple. A service was taking place which we watched in silence and here are some of the participants leaving. The temple is surrounded by beautiful lush greenery.





There's an imposing aqueduct on site with some amazing light streaming through the trees.





I decided it was a vision worthy of a black and white image. From Nanzen-Ji I stumbled around searching for the Path of Philosophy.





It's a beautiful quiet tree lined walk, home to many cats.





It's where I found this elderly lady taking a stroll. The Path of Philosophy led me to the Honen-In Temple.





The Honen-In Temple is another of the lovely quiet contemplative green temples, my favourite kind.






So green!





The temple is set in lush greenery which manages to out lush the Nanzen-Ji Temple.



Time for reflection before returning to the Path of Philosophy for the short walk to the Gingkaku-Ji Temple.





Now this temple is a very popular one in Kyoto, which means it's also very crowded. I couldn't get a clear shot of the famous sand sculpture so I concentrated on a detail shot instead.



The Silver Temple is surrounded by beautiful gardens and a lake. I was too late for cherry blossoms but I was right on time for the azaleas.



Beautiful gardens require maintenance and I found this gardener hard at work.





Next time I blog about my trip to Kyoto I'll be posting photos from Arashiyama but I'll be back before then with some baking.

See you all again next week. 

Bye for now,

Jillian