I made another visit to the hard-to-reach Ushio Kannon Temple, which I wrote about a couple of months ago, but this time I went by car and took my nice camera. The beautiful, rich matte red of this dimly-lit statue caught my eye...

I don't know anything about Buddhism, but this statue is apparently of a Wisdom King named "Ragaraja", a "dharmapala deity" that is "known to transform worldly lust into spiritual awakening", according to Wikipedia.

Visually it's quite interesting, and was one of many in a small, dimly-lit hall.

To be continued...

Continuing on from "The Back Entrance to Shiga’s Eigenji Temple" the other day, about a trip last week to the Eigenji Temple (永源寺) about an hour's drive from Kyoto, after entering via the rear gate, you find a closed-off courtyard to one side...

You're not allowed inside, but it's still pretty from the gate.

To give a better sense of the space, here's a wigglegram:

To be continued...

This picture is from the same snowy outing almost two years ago that produced the three-part "Kyoto At Night During a Heavy Snow" posts (part 1 - part 2 - part 3). This shot mimics the one that leads Part 2, but this one was taken five hours later (at 4:42am) after the snow had long stopped falling.

Anyway, it's just a random photo to accompany a recommendation for users of Adobe Lightroom to read Victoria Bampton's "Lightroom Catalogs – Top 10 Misunderstandings" article. New users may find some misconceptions cleared up, while veterans will find a good resource to [...]

Last week I took a drive out to a new temple that Manseki had recommended as being pretty in autumn. It did not disappoint. (The "Anatomy of a Selfie" that I posted the other day was taken here.)

It turns out that I rode right by this temple during my summer bicycle ride to Nagoya. At that time, it took about 2h 40m to get here from home. This time by car, it took about an hour. I made the drive with Paul, Damien, and a newly-met friend, Adrian Tischler from Australia.

We didn't realize it at the time, [...]

Today we did a simple little "Hanase Support" ride, where a few of us with experience making the climb to Hanase Pass helped out those who have never done it. Lianca and Stephanie made the climb for the first time, being encouraged by Manseki, Antti, and me.

The southern climb to Hanase Pass is Kyoto's premier climb, averaging 8.6% for 5.8 km (3.6 miles) of unrelenting grade. Through sheer ignorance I happened to choose it for my first-ever real bike outing, in the snow and ice of early February last year, when it took 48 minutes to finish. I've climbed [...]