Kiyomizudera– category –

Most people visit Kiyomizudera between ten and noon. I went at six-thirty — and the temple was entirely different. Why Does Kiyomizudera Open at 6:00 A.M.? That was the question that brought me here before sunrise. Not the crowds, not th...

Someone in the crowd cheered. I was looking through my viewfinder when it happened. By the time I turned to look, the man who had drawn the crowd's attention was already gone. Only the ring of onlookers remained, their eyes already shift...

Three times a year, a dragon descends from Kiyomizudera Temple and walks through the streets of Kyoto. This is Seiryu-e — and almost nobody outside Japan knows it exists. I had arrived a full hour early. It wasn't enough. The stone steps...

What leads the evening news in Japan every spring? Not politics. Not the economy. Cherry blossoms. Morning news, evening news, the front page of the newspaper. When the first buds will open in each city, when they'll hit full bloom, how ...

Every August, for eight days only, Kiyomizudera Temple opens its inner sanctuary to the public — a space closed even to most monks for the rest of the year. This is what Kiyomizuzaka looks like at midnight in August. Kiyomizuzaka is stil...