Kyoto, Japan

Perry, Susan, Sekine-san, and I decided to take a one-day trip to Kyoto to see some old ass temples. Kyoto is the former capital of Japan - Western Capital. It is pretty much an old city with like 4000 Buddhist Shinto temples.
Kyoto Pictures

So we took a 2 hour bus ride and started on our day. First we saw the Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the Silver Pavilion), then Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion), and finally Ryoan-ji Rock Garden. The Silver Temple was pretty nice, aside from the main temple being under repair. They do amazing things with sand, and again, what's a temple without a magnificent garden?

That's sand representing Mt. Fuji.

Up next was a Kyoto style lunch at a local restaurant. I can't tell the difference between the "styles" of food between cities, so i will just explain what I ate, or at least I think I ate.

There was some kinda spicy cold stuff on the left, Kirin beer, some tofu, an entire fish with soft bones, other fish pieces, sweet rice paste, and a giant chilled tofu square in soy sauce. MMMmmm.

After Lunch we made our way to the Golden Temple, which is probably the most recognizable place in Kyoto.

And then over to the Rock Garden at Ryoan-ji, which is quite perplexing. There are 15 boulders in an open garden with some significance.

The problem is that no one knows the significance. I asked and read the Ryoan-ji pamphlet which explained that the rock garden means whatever the hell you want it to mean. The rocks, the open spaces between the rocks...the more you meditate on them, they can mean something different. Sounds like someone threw a bunch of rocks in an open air garden and just got lazy. Shinto? Sure.