After lunch yesterday we went to the Heian Jingu which was built in
1894 to mark the 1,100th anniversary of the founding of Kyoto. The shrine
consist of three stroll gardens following the aesthetic of focusing
on a large pond which is a rare feature at a Shinto shrine. 
There
is a stepping stone path that crosses athe water-its steps are recycled
pillars from a 16th century bridge that spanned the Kamogawa before
an earthquake destroyed it. It is said the blue dragon pond stones are
like the back of a dragon. The view from the covered bridge that crosses
the blue dragon pond can be seen in the picture.
Then we went to the Kiyomizu Temple which has a marvelous view of the
city from the wooden veranda. We then returned to the hotel and had
a free evening.
The next day started with us going to the Kinkaku-ji Temple. The Golden
Pavillion was built as a retirement home by one of the Shoguns. The
Temple of the Golden Pavillion is built of wood, lacquered, and then
covered with gold leaf. We walked through the grounds and then left
to go to the temporary home of the Shogun. He used the home when he
came from Edo (Tokyo) to see what the emperor was up to.
Cindy and I are standing in front of the area entering Nijo Castle
(Nijo-jo). This castle was built by the first Tokugawa Shogun. This
is the Shogun which in the book and the movie Shogun was Toranaga.
The Ninomaru Palace inside the grounds of Nijo castle had one of the
first alarm systems. They have a floor called a nightingale floor. The
wooden floors squeak and creak when ever anyone treads on them.
When the floor is trod upon, the clamps under
it move up and down creating a friction between the nails and the clamps
which hold them in place causing the floor to squeak. It is the bird
like sound thus emitted that gives it the name Nightengale Floor.
Then we went to SanJu-Sangen-Do which is the Hall with 33 spaces between
the pillars. There are 1001 statues of the Buddhist deity Kannon. They
each have 40 arms and each arm is supposed to save 25 people spiritually.
It struck me as I was looking at these statues that as a Rotarians we
could think of ourselves, maybe not saving, but affecting at least 25
people per arm per Rotarian. I thought we should take the world’s
population divide by 50 and that would tell us how many Rotarians we
need to build the many bridges that we need to.
The rest of the day was free time so we went to the Handicrafts Center.
They had all kinds of goodies and we wanted to get some but then it
hit us that we did not have any room in our luggage. We left, found
a soda, and started walking back to the hotel.
We did not know what we were getting into. We left the Center around
2PM and we arrived at the hotel at about 4:15PM.
Saying goodbye from Kyoto, Japan.
See you tomorrow on the web site.
Ron and Cindy Sekkel
