In yesterday's post about my first summer visit to the Kajuji Temple (勧修寺) in Kyoto, I mentioned that it was much more "Alive" than in the bleak of winter. It's got a lot of animal life, but this post highlights some of the botanical life.

As far as I can tell, the lifespan of the lotus brings its flower through a few visually-distinct stages, but it's difficult to be sure exactly what's going on...

The pink bud opening in the photo above is the same one seen at the top of this post, and in the next image, which looks [...]

As I mentioned the other day in "Kyoto’s Kajuji Temple at its Most Bleak (is Still Very Nice)", it was indeed rather bleak (but still rather nice) when I first visited in the winter, but a recent Japan Times article about its summer beauty reminded me to make another visit, so this morning I did.

最近の記事は勧修寺（かじゅうじ；京都市山科区）の冬の景色けれども、今朝もう一回行きました。夏は全然違う。「生きてる」雰囲気です！

I'm at a loss to explain the odd stance... my best guess is that I knew that the ground was uneven, so rather than risk misstepping when I wanted to move back a bit, I just leaned back. I dunno. I look silly so [...]

Today's post is a continuation of yesterday's look at the Kajuji Temple during its bleak winter phase. Even then it was quite nice.

There's a fine line on the spectrum of disrepair between "quaint rustic" and "ugly dilapidated neglect", and I found this temple to be well situated on the pleasant side of the line, much like the fences at the Gioji Temple.

Just inside the gate was a weird barren bush of the likes I'd never seen....

Continued here...

I'm mixing things up today by dipping into the large backlog of stuff I want to post, to my trip last December to the Jingoji Temple in north-west Kyoto.

今日の写真は去年の秋の神護寺(じんごじ、京都市)の裏にある散歩道。

This location is actually only about a mile away from the Kuuya-taki Waterfall that I've been posting about recently, but it's a very mountainous mile and the two locations feel worlds apart. To drive between them, for example, would take a considerable time because it entails a long loop into the city and back.

I'd made a few introductory posts from that trip, including "On The Path To (and From) [...]

Some more shots from the outing that started with "Tag Along With Me on a Photo Shoot at Kyoto’s Gioji Temple" and covered in a bunch of posts until the most recent, "Taking It Easy With Some Flowers".

Here's a shot of me, shooting the same mushrooms seen in "Nicolas's White Little Mushrooms"...

The other side of the fence roof had some nails sticking out such that you could tell where the board used to be before it rotted away...

Let's try that again, but with a thinner depth of field...

Now you can really see them.

The rest of [...]