Kyoto: the Golden Pavilion and Ryōan-ji

Kyoto was Japan's imperial capital for over a thousand years, and its temples are among the most photographed places in the country. Two of the best known sit close together in the north-west of the city.

Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, is a Zen temple whose upper two floors are covered in gold leaf. It stands at the edge of a pond, and on a still day the reflection is almost as sharp as the building itself, which is why so many photographs of it are taken from across the water. The present pavilion is a reconstruction: the original was burned in 1950 and rebuilt a few years later.

Ryōan-ji is famous for the opposite quality. Its dry rock garden, a rectangle of raked gravel with a small number of stones, is one of the best-known examples of Zen landscape design. The photograph here looks instead at the wooden halls framed by maple leaves, a reminder that the temple grounds are green and leafy around the garden.

The last frames move closer to the ground: a stone lantern and a Buddha statue, both softened by moss, the kind of detail that fills the gardens of Kyoto.

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Photos: zitarzheng, chiemseherin, alexanderstein, deltaworks on Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. These are not my photographs.