The Silver Palace was built by the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa who designed it as his retirement villa. He carefully laid out beautiful gardens - from stone, sand and water, built mossy floored woods, long walkways with beautiful shrubs, and paths that led up to viewing spots, and then down to garden areas.
He retreated to this place of calm and beauty, becoming himself a zen buddhist monk. He stated that his villa should remain a zen retreat and so it did. It is called the Silver Palace - to contrast with the Golden Pavilion Temple - another zen buddhist temple in Kyoto built about the same time.
Yoshimasa initially planned to cover the building with silver foil - thus its name. However, this never was accomplished, and rather one enjoys the reflected light from the silica in the sand gardens, and from the alum-based lacquer used to cover the buildings, which reflects in the sun (a bit). (Actually, It is more a series of brown buildings with white accents looking out on superb gardens.)
Our approach to the temple area was up a gentle incline past shops, many students from a nearby university, and shop keepers. We were fairly early, so crowds had not gathered. We walked through as much of the buildings as we could (though Daddy had seen more of the inside structure), but then, as always we wanted to enjoy the gardens... and leave our shoes on. At every turn or resting spot in this beautifully thought-out retreat, there was something to appreciate: the placement of stones, the raked sand design-work, trees with gnarly trunks, views of the buildings which seemed to float above the trees; and of course....cherry blossoms.
At this point it was as sunny as it was going to get, so while the funicular didn't strike us as a requirement, we did want to see the famous buddhist monastery at the top. So once more we hopped into our trusty Toyota Crown Saloon car and were driven up twisty, narrow roads until we reached the top of the holy mountain - Mt. Hiei. Here there is an enormous world-renowned buddhist complex made up of three unique areas. We were to visit parts of the main one. This monastery complex was the first outpost of the Tendai sect of buddhism built in 700, and while it was razed, warrior buddhists fought for it and to this day it continues as a buddhist sanctuary. As we walked up another incline to the main 'lecture' hall, there were a series of illustrated 'billboards' telling the long history of the monastery. One of the more amazing things we learned was that various monks nicknamed the Marathon Monks have walked around this mountain for a 1000 days of meditation and prayer - with the most recent monk having walked 26 miles a day, jn clusters of over 200 consecutive days - accomplishing the same feat as walking around the Earth.
As we approached one of the buildings, there was a conclave of Zen buddhist monks leaving the building, and posing like a class picture in front of the building. We took pictures (discreetly), and learned that they were honoring a particular monk of 800 years ago. As they descended en masse to the main hall in the complex, we followed behind them until we arrived at the same building where were laid out all their white 'flip flops'. We too took off our shoes, and went in and walked along the viewing gallery looking inside to the buddhist main sanctuary below. Then we climbed back up to where we had started, and went back to our car. I'm sure that it would have helped had we known more about this area...and probably all our buddhist friends will wonder how we couldn't know about this place....but there you have it.
This complex, like others had a HUGE bronze bell, but unlike 'big daddy' in downtown Kyoto, this one was a bit smaller and for a small donation we mortals were able to strike the bell with the huge 'battering ram' piece of wood. But it is to be struck only once... not a minor feat when swinging a very heavy piece of wood which when it gains momentum, wants to hit its mark more than once. I captured a great photograph of Bob and Matsui-san stopping the ram from striking a second time, and Bob reported that it was no mean feat just to swing it once.
Having gotten more than our fair share of exercise walking up, down, and all around, we bid Matusi-san a fond farewell and returned to the hotel to rest. From now on we are on our own in Kyoto with places to explore, restaurants to enjoy and stores to be examined. But first we will take a quiet day of doing nothing to recoup both our minds and our bodies which have been very busy for the last four.
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