This week, I traveled to Japan to meet my mom for a week long vacation in Kyoto. My mom was in the midst of an epic travel circling the globe, and I met her for her last international country. It was my first time flying internationally by myself and the furthest I have ever traveled. And, now that I have traveled so far, I am hooked.
After 24 hours of connecting flights, I made it to the hotel and went straight to bed.
The next morning, we took a bus to the northern suburbs to find Kinkaku-Ji, the Golden Pavilion. The Golden Pavilion dates back to 1397 but was burned and destroyed several times. The current structure was built in 1955 and is coated in gold leaf. It truly took my breath away when I first saw it and loved the surrounding grounds.
After exploring the Golden Pavilion, we walked ten minutes down the street to the Ryoan-Ji. Ryoan-Ji is a zen temple with a beautiful rock garden. There are a total of fifteen stones in the garden, but the viewer can only see fourteen at once.
Our final exploration of the day was the Ninnaji Temple further down the road. The temple was founded in AD 888 and is a Buddhist head temple. The temple grounds were filled with impressive buildings, including a Five story pagoda. I could not photograph my favorite building, which was a room with hundreds of golden dieties. I won’t forget the peace of the room anytime soon.
