Some Zen Gardens

Many of the temples in Kyoto had zen gardens with sculpted sand and trimmed shrubbery...

These are from Ginkakuji temple, which has the 'silver pavilion'. Sort of like the golden pavilion,  except this one never got finished to the silver pavilion isn't silver.

There was lots of sculpted sand. They managed to get such straight lines and sharp edges which was really neat.

Lots of nice water and rocks

A wishing well!

A little shrine off to the side a bit... im not sure whats its for.

They use a lot of these bamboo railings, which are just tied together with string but super stable.

The silver pavilion is off the le left, and kyoto is in the background.

I was impressed with how clean the forest was inside of the temple walls. Inside its nicely kept moss and no dead branches or anything. Seems like a lot of work.

The silver pavilion!

They had a section of the roof, so you could see how it was made.  Its made of japanese cypress. Each shingle is about 30cm long, with the last 3cm showing. A bamboo nail is used to attach them all.

This is at the "Northern Gion" shrine. These litle fountains are all over. You collect some water in the wooden spoon, and poor it over your hands into the fountain.

These are little strips of paper with prayers/wished written on them tied to the trees next to the fountain.

The "Northern Gion" shrine focuses on Miyamoto Musashi, japans greatest sword master. He fought and defeated the Yoshioka school nearby around an ancient pine tree, the famous "Sagarimatsu" pine. This is a bit of the ancient pine. All this stuff went down in about 1294.

The man himself

Next to the sword-master shrine area is a small house with some beautiful gardens. A famous poet lived here for a bit.  Now its the Shinsendo Temple

More sand gardens in the poets house

This is a deer frightener. Apparently designed by the poet himself, it was to scare wild pigs and dear away from his  garden. It fills with water, then dumps and knocks on a rock making a cool noise.

Koi in a nice little pond

some Koi ponds have these little huts in them, to add some shade for the fish. 

A cool bridge thats just a stone

This is at the entrance to the poets house. I was surprised by how thing these roofs are.

This temple had a really neat entrance/exit

A shrine by the side of the road...

More prayer sticks you can use. I think they must burn them at regular intervals.

These pictures are from the Mansyuin temple. This place was sort of like a big house of open hallways with gardens between.

These are what the walkways look like. You take your shoes off to walk around.

They do a lot of tree shaping. Some of these hold branches up, and some pull them down,.