{"id":1184,"date":"2009-04-12T01:33:21","date_gmt":"2009-04-11T16:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-04-12\/1184"},"modified":"2009-04-12T01:33:21","modified_gmt":"2009-04-11T16:33:21","slug":"a-visit-to-western-kyotos-konzou-temple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-04-12\/1184","title":{"rendered":"A Visit to Western Kyoto’s Konzou Temple"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/14, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nMezzanine Level from Above<\/b>\nKonzou Temple<\/span>\nin the mountains of western Kyoto, Japan\n<\/div>\n\n

I didn't mention the temple by name in that post because I thought<\/span> I'd\nfollow up with a post<\/span> all about it with some of the many pictures I got<\/span>\nthat day, but, like most of what I want<\/span> to post about, I never<\/span> got around\nto it.<\/p>\n\n

Anyway, I'd been wanting<\/span> to visit while there were cherry blossoms, so I\ntook<\/span> the opportunity to do so today. Anthony doesn't care about temples and\nmountains and pretty things, but I needed<\/span> to clear him out of the house for\na while<\/span> to give Fumie a chance<\/span> to work on preparations for his upcoming year\nin first grade<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/5, ISO 1250 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nEntrance Gate<\/span>\nAnthony deposits the requested 200 yen (about US$2)\n<\/div>\n\n

This temple is built on the side of a mountain,<\/span> and so there are\nsteps.... lots of steps. You can see<\/span> some in the background of the picture\nabove, and in the picture below as we start to climb them...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f<\/span>\/5, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nWaiting for Daddy<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/10, ISO 640 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nNearing the Top<\/span>\nthe top of this set<\/i> of steps, that is; there are many more in our future\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 48 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/9, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nTranquil<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

There was almost no one there, so we essentially had the whole place to\nourself. (When I first<\/span> visited two months ago, I didn't<\/span> see another soul\nthe whole time, so in comparison, today's few people was a crowd.<\/span>)<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 40 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/8, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nSmall Water Feature<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f<\/span>\/4.5, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nCuriosity<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I think that path leads to the a bathroom,<\/span> and what used to be the\ncaretaker's residence. If anyone<\/span> lives there now, it's not apparent. But the place<\/span> is generally very well cared for, so perhaps they're just good at\nbeing invisible.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 34 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/4.5, ISO 3200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nMore Curiosity<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

The litter\/palanquin above was apparently used by some kid who would\ngrow up to be a famous<\/span> shogun – Tsunayoshi Tokugawa<\/a> – and\/or his mom, or something, while\nhe lived here at the temple during his childhood. (The temple dates to\n1639, according to a\nweb<\/span> page I found<\/span><\/a>, and the kid was born in 1646, according to the\nWikipedia link.)<\/p>\n\n

The wooden plaque in the lower left of the photo above explains it, but\nI couldn't<\/span> understand much of it. There were no signs prohibiting entrance\nto the display area (normally, there would be in a case<\/span> like this, if\nentrance was prohibited), so I let<\/span> Anthony go in after taking his shoes\noff, and bade him not to touch anything.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 42 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/5.6, ISO 720 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nSimple Sensibilities<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 60 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f<\/span>\/5.6, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nMountain Stairs and Sakura<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f<\/span>\/5.6, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nPink-n-Green<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/7.1, ISO 900 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nWhat's in There?<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

This was the largest building on the site, up a flight<\/span> of steps from the\nlevel with the cherry blossoms and old shogun's litter (which I called<\/span> the\n“mezzanine level” in the caption to the first photo). That level also had a\nfew<\/span> large buildings, so it's hard to guess which is the “main” building,\nespecially since I don't<\/span> really know what “main building” means in the\ncontext of a Buddhist<\/span> temple.<\/p>\n\n

I do know that the big black pot to Anthony's right is for incense. You can see<\/span> Fumie lighting some with Anthony at a similar<\/span> (but larger) urn in\nthis\n2007 photo from the Nanzen Temple<\/a> near our place.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 40 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f<\/span>\/3.5, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nLion Guardian<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I liked the stark shadows the midday sun made on this stone lion, and\nexaggerated them in post processing. It sort of<\/span> falls flat, I think,<\/span> but my\nthinking something falls flat has shown itself to be a good<\/span> indication that\nothers will like it (and vice-versa), so I'm including it in today's\npost.<\/p>\n\n

The lion was part of a pair guarding the entrance to a small<\/span> but\nelaborate cemetery temple for some famous (yet dead) guy. I think<\/span> I recall<\/span>\nfrom my previous visit that it's for an emperor, but it may well be the\naforementioned shogun. I'll have to check my earlier photos for a name.<\/span>\nHere's a bit<\/span> of a wider<\/span> view, this time with shadows artificially reduced\nin post processing...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 32 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f<\/span>\/3.5, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Now that I look at the big characters in the lower-right of the photo\nabove, I have to<\/span> wonder whether it's not a reference<\/span> to the grave of the\nshogun, who was noted as the “dog shogun” due to his laws protecting\nanimals. The character<\/span> at left means “grave”, but I don't<\/span> know one at\nright, although one component of it is the character for “dog”. (Anyone who\nknows what it means is probably laughing hysterically at my silly\nguessing.)<\/p>\n\n

Speaking of silly guessing and Japanese, I made such<\/span> a silly<\/span> mistake\nlast week that I actually<\/span> made a waitress<\/span> laugh at me. Normally, they would\nnever break out of their customer-service\nnever-do-anything-to-make-the-customer-feel-bad mode, but this was just too\nsilly. I was at<\/span> a family<\/span> restaurant with two very similar pictures on the menu,\none marked with\n\u300c\u30ed\u30fc\u30b9\u30b9\u30c6\u30fc\u30ad\u300d<\/span>\n(loinsteak) and the other\n\u300c\u4e00\u53e3\u30b9\u30c6\u30fc\u30ad\u300d.<\/span>\n\nIn my silliness, I misread<\/span>\n\u300c\u4e00\u53e3\u300d<\/span>\nas\n\u300c\u30fc\u30ed\u300d<\/span>\n\nand wondered whether it was a typo,<\/span> or something, because\n\u300c\u30fc\u30ed\u300d<\/span>\nwould make absolutely no sense whatsoever in that situation.<\/p>\n\n

Silly me! It wasn't\n\u300c\u30fc\u30ed\u300d,<\/span>\nbut rather\n\u300c\u4e00\u53e3\u300d,<\/span>\nwhich was really quite obvious from the context, and I felt<\/span> wholly stupid.\n\u300c\u4e00\u53e3\u30b9\u30c6\u30fc\u30ad\u300d<\/span>\nis, of course, cubed steak. I'm still<\/span> blushing.<\/p>\n\n\n

Anyway, back to our visit to the Konzou Temple. Being on a mountain,<\/span> it\nsometimes offers amazing views...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 62 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/18, ISO 220 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nChecking Out the View<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I posted a similar photo<\/a>, sans Anthony, in my previous post,\nalthough today was only marginally less hazy than then. (It was much warmer\ntoday, though. Rather than freezing my fingers off during the hour-long\nride there, today was short-sleeve weather.)<\/p>\n\n

Heading back down, the “mezzanine level” again called out to be\nphotographed, as a lone<\/span> lady with red backpack enjoyed the quiet vista from\nthe shade...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 44 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/7.1, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nSomeone Enjoying “Me” Time<\/span>\nthat's about to be interrupted by a genki<\/span> 6-year-old\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 34 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>500 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nAnthony Enjoying Some “Juice Time”<\/span>\nwith a Gatorade-like sports drink, something he never gets at home\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 28 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1000 sec, f<\/span>\/5, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nAnthony's Creative Efforts<\/span>\nhis camera tilt was very specifically done for (some unknown) effect....\nphoto by Anthony Friedl<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 28 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/5, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nDeer Carved in Stone<\/span>\nphoto by Anthony Friedl<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 48 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f<\/span>\/8, ISO 250 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nBaseball Practice in the Parking Lot<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

My bribe to get Anthony to go with me was that we'd play catch at the\ntemple. We played<\/span> a bit<\/span> when we first arrived at the otherwise-empty\nparking lot, then headed on up in search of another place to play. (In some\nof the photos, you can see him with an orange bag; that's his mitt and\nball.)<\/p>\n\n

We never did find a better place, so returned to play some more in the\nstill-empty parking lot. I got him<\/span> the glove and ball for Christmas, but we\nhaven't had much chance to use them until the recent warmer weather. (We\ntried a bit,<\/span> for example, during our recent trip to Awaji\nIsland<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

Today's second session in the temple parking lot witnessed the first\ntime he actually caught the ball with the glove. After catching it once, he\nreally started to get the hang of it, and ended up catching it almost a\ndozen<\/span> times in the short time we played.<\/p>\n\n

All in all a good day, and we hadn't even had lunch yet.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fueled by an unheard-of 14 hours of sleep last night (I went to bed at 7pm! Got up at 9am!! First time anything like this in.... hmmm, how old is Anthony?), I escaped the crush of tourists enjoying the cherry blossoms in my area and took Anthony on a trip across Kyoto and into the mountains to visit the Konzou Temple (\u91d1\u8535\u5bfa), a temple I first visited somewhat by chance during my bamboo-filled Western-Kyoto Mountain Drive that I posted about two months ago.<\/p>

I didn't mention the temple by name in that post because I thought I'd follow up with [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Fueled by an unheard-of 14 hours of sleep last night (I went<\/span> to bed at\n7pm! Got up at<\/span> 9am!! First time anything like this in.... hmmm, how old is\nAnthony?), I escaped<\/span> the crush of tourists enjoying the cherry blossoms in\nmy area and took Anthony on a trip<\/span> across Kyoto and into the mountains to\nvisit the Konzou Temple (\u91d1\u8535\u5bfa),<\/span> a temple<\/span> I first<\/span> visited somewhat by\nchance during my bamboo-filled Western-Kyoto Mountain\nDrive<\/a> that I posted<\/span> about two months ago.<\/p>\n\n