On January 1st, we made a visit to the Heian Shrine for hatsumode, a ritualistic "first visit to a shrine in the new year" that's a religious experience for some, but a cultural event for all. The shrine was open all night, but even at noon it was still crowded...

(The shot above was taken from under the big orange shrine gate that straddles the road... view the "nearby photos" link under the pic to see area views.)

Inside the shrine courtyard there was a long line waiting to get in...

The line looks long, but it moved briskly and [...]

Early last month, at the start of a most photogenic fall-foliage season in the Kyoto area, I posted "First Taste of Fall Colors at Shiga's Amazing Kongourinji Temple", ending that post with this photo:

I had intended a quick followup post to explain the "300 meters of sorrow and anguish await" caption of that photo, but I was precluded from doing so by a subsequent succession of visits to other amazing places (including the Konzou Temple, the Kotou-in Temple, the most impressive Yoshiminedera Temple, the Sanzen-in Temple, the Sokusouji Temple, the gardens at Shouzan, the Iwato Ochiba Shrine, among others). [...]

Last week, Kyoto friend Britto posted on his blog about a couple of recent bicycle trips he'd recently taken, including one to a shrine in the mountains north of Kyoto that sounded so appealing that I went there myself the next day (though I went by motorbike). Paul Barr is still in town, so I invited him along; that's him in the photos above.

It was a long and steep enough trip on the scooter... mad props to Britto for doing it on a bicycle!

In the shrine's name (岩戸落葉神社; iwato ochiba jinja), iwato means "rock above a cave entrance", [...]

I was out again today for an amazing day of fall-foliage photography, and on the way home in the late afternoon stopped in to the Koutouin Temple (高桐院) for 10 minutes, just to peek at its most-excellent entrance path, which featured prominently in "A First Visit To Kyoto’s Koutou-in Temple" two weeks ago. I have still literally not even looked at the photos from my second trip to this temple, but since I took only a few photos on this trip today, I thought I'd post some.

I was greeted with exactly what I expected.... lots of people...

... and [...]

Today is a national holiday of some sort in Japan, so we took a drive out to the mountains to take some photos for our Christmas and New-Year's cards. We wanted to go somewhere pretty but uncrowded, and since it was a mad house in Kyoto, we headed out to the same area as in my previous post, "Beating the Crowds at the Middle-of-Nowhere Sokushouji Temple". We got our photos, and since we were in the neighborhood, I wanted to show Fumie and Anthony the temple...

The roof near the top of the steps is for a little seating/rest area, [...]