Buns o steel part 3: Dimonji Mountain

good day readers!
i forgot to put this post in, so i am writting it in march, but it actually happened in february. we went to kyoto, to see a slightly different temple "ginkakuji temple". So by now i thnk i should have learned my lesson. the temple was built to be a summer retreat home for an emperor. and he actually wanted it covered in a silver leaf paint, i guess to be sort of frivolous. But i think he was ambushed before his dreams of a silver house came into fruition. I was really disapointed by his home. I was more impressed with the walk way up to the temple, than with the actual temple. And what made me more pissed off was spendind 1000 yen to enter the grounds. If the temple "experience" was free, I would have been much happier, but 1000 yen. what the hell!!!
The temple was about the size of a small house, but the rrounds were quite large and tree-y. The high light of the ginkakji experience was meeting a professor from toronto in the bath room. She was really nice, and was on a short trip form korea. she was teaching engligh methodology to korean english teachers.

After the ginkakuji bit, be and shiv set out on the real adventure for the day, climbing dimonji mountain and then hiking down the mountain weaving our way through some other mountain temples. well that was the plan..

we did make it up dimonji mountain, and boy was it great. I like hiking with shiv, cause he makes the trip really fun, you forget that your sweating like a pig and your legs are numb. dimonji mountain is a huge mountain that towers over Kyoto. In the summer during the dimonji matusri (festival). tons of wood is "pully-ed" up the mounatin and set up in many individually spaced fire pits that form the over all shape of the "dai" symbol.

So in all, there is a huge "dai" symbol made of little fires burned into the side of a mountain. Quite a spectacle if i can say so myself. some of the pictures are from our accent up to the peak. There was a really cute temple right on the peak of the mounatin, as well as a great veiw.

we also met a really nice friend at the top of the mounatin. a 75 year old man, that was so friendly and offered to take us down the mountain. We told him we were going to nanzen ji temple, and he said he was going there too. We were hoping to see other temples on the way down, bUt i think he misunderstood and took us on a sweet short cut down the mountain.

He was so nice, and relentless at english, he did NOT use a lick of englsih for the 2 hours it took to get down the mountain. It was great. Shivs japanese is getting great.mne not so much. But the little man was bounding down the mountain like a gazelle, i actually think he was sprint-hopping the whole way. This man was the epitomy of fitness.

It started to rain, and he took us through a more treed area so that we didn't get wet. The whole time i thought he was taking us into his secret lair to kill us, My moms wild imagination has genetically been implanted in me and I cant help but always imagine the worst. So the whole way i was looking for any sign of accomplises, booby traps, clothing scraps etc.. my mind was racing a million miles a minute, but all in all, our lives aren't so intersting.

He got us down the mountain, safe and dry and in the court yards of nanzen ji temple. such a nice man, he even gave us historical commentary about the areas, temples, japan and other stuff all in japanese (with lots of hand motions).
great day, enjoy the photos.