Kyoto– category –
-
I Remembered the Toilet, Not the Bridge: A Tofukuji Temple Autumn Guide
I went to Tofukuji as a schoolkid, on the class trip to Kyoto that nearly every Japanese teenager takes. The gardens, the halls, the routes we walked, all of it has dissolved. One memory survived, and it is not the one a Tofukuji Temple ... -
Why Blue? The Shoren-in Temple Night Illumination and the Flower That Does Not Grow Here
The color was wrong. I knew it the moment I stepped through the gate. I have spent a fair number of nights at Kyoto temples, and the light is almost always orange. Candle orange. Lantern orange. Flame strained through wood and paper. But... -
Yuka-momiji at Rurikoin Temple: The Room Behind Kyoto’s Most Reflected Photo
The Table at Rurikoin Temple, and the Wind That Came With It A breeze crossed the room, then quit. A few seconds later it returned, stronger, and quit again. Just as I accepted that the pleasant part of the afternoon was over, the air mo... -
The Path That Skips the Bamboo Grove: Daihikaku Senkoji, the Temple I Put Off for Three Years
Two Western tourists were talking at the foot of Togetsukyo Bridge. "Does this way go to the Bamboo Grove?" "No. It doesn't." I was heading in exactly the opposite direction. My destination was a temple that had been bothering me for thr... -
Where Is the White Sand Cone? A Night at Kamigamo Shrine’s Summer Illumination
I picked July 15 for a reason. That night was Yoiyama, the eve of the Gion Festival's grand procession. Every human being in Kyoto, as far as I could tell, would be funneling toward Shijo-Karasuma to drink beer under the lantern-lit floa... -
Gion Matsuri Float Procession (Yamaboko Junko): The Festival That Makes You Wait
The Gion Matsuri float procession begins at nine in the morning on July 17. I was on Shijo Street by eight, feeling clever. I had done my calculations. The procession departs from Shijo-Karasuma, so Shijo-Karasuma would be mobbed. I got ... -
Walking Barefoot Over Coals: The Tanukidani Fudoin Fire Walking Festival
Empty your mind, and even fire feels cool. Every Japanese child hears that proverb at some point, and I was still repeating it to myself on the way up the mountain to the Tanukidani Fudoin Fire Walking Festival, where I had voluntarily s... -
Gion Matsuri Yoiyama: The Nights Kyoto Belongs to the Lanterns
Every guidebook says the highlight of Gion Matsuri is the grand float procession on July 17. The guidebooks are not wrong. But ask people who actually live in Kyoto, and many of us will tell you something different: the real pleasure com... -
Gion Matsuri’s Other Night: Omukae Chochin and Mikoshi Arai on July 10
The moment I climbed the stairs out of Gion-Shijo Station, a wind hit my face like the exhaust of a hair dryer. This particular kind of wind, I had always believed, existed in exactly two places: in front of an actual hair dryer, or besi... -
Adashino Nenbutsuji: Kyoto’s Temple of 8,000 Silent Stones
Temple fatigue is real. Ask anyone on day four of a Kyoto itinerary. The gold of Kinkakuji, the raked gravel of Ryoanji, the wooden stage of Kiyomizu. All beautiful, and after a while the beauty starts sliding off you like rain off a goo...
