Temple #4769

By this time I'm starting to think we should have some kind of member's pass for all the temples we've been to. I'll tell you a couple of reasons why we always end up at a temple. 1.) Everything else in Japan is really expensive. If you ever want to spend an afternoon out of the apartment without spending another $50, you'll probably end up at a temple. 2.) Every other structure in Japan is torn down and rebuilt every 30 years or so. Seriously, I'm not even joking. Temples are the only historic buildings in the country. If you wanna see some history or traditional culture, you've gotta go to a temple.

Of course the other thing is that while karaoke and bowling and restaurants are all well and good, the pictures suck. Now that it's spring we'd like to take some trips up into the surrouding mountains. Soon I'll slap up some pictures of the greenery to give you a break from all this templeosity.

Many temples have one tall building in the centre. I'm not sure why, I should find out.

(I realize that this is probably the least helpful caption I have ever written.)

When you first come into the temple you're supposed to wash your hands in dragon saliva. Okay, it's actually water. Dragon saliva is highly corrosive and it would eat the flesh right off of your bones, and then eat your bones too.

This is a great tree. I don't know what its name is because it wasn't very responsive. Japanese culture can be quite reserved (but don't let that fool you, they really cut loose at baseball games and any local festival with free sake).

"Spot the Foreigner" - I see three Canadians! From left to right that's Lisa, Tiffany, Liz, and our friend Noriko.

Zen Buddhism sees meditation as the path to enlightenment. I don't think this was a Zen temple, but the walk up to the front gate was fairly enlightening for this guy.