journeywoman2010: Nov 6 -Temples, gardens and fashion designers...

...will all make an appearance in this blog, so steel yourself!

First the temple: 40 minutes out of town to the area of Shinobi, driven by a white gloved taxi-chauffeur, brought us to an entirely different landscape...winding roads, villas nestled on the hillside, so much green... reminiscent of a mountain resort in Europe. Our urban driver got lost, but in true Japanese tradition, turned off the meter as soon as he noticed....

We walked along lush garden paths to the temple tucked away inside this greenery...no signage,no parking, no tourists, and because we were early, no Japanese....

The Nembutsu-ji temple at Adashino outside of Kyoto was founded around the year 800 and was a burial ground. There are 8000 buddha stones here, made as gravestones for the dead buried inthe Adashino area from 800- end of the Edo period in 1868. The temple is considered the spiritual home of religious people in Japan.

Part of the temple complex was a bamboo forest...(not THE bamboo forest which is at the bottom of the mountain, but much nicer in my estimation)...

..and it was awesome, in the truest sense of the word.

We meandered down the mountain....well, hill...but to me and the Japanese a mountain....and the mostly pedestrian path was, as I said, reminiscent of a mountain resort...lots of little shops selling among other things, mobiles made of silk cocoons

AND

...the enjoyment of the day was ratcheted up a notch by meeting the designer of Anomaly Structure, a true renaissance man...

He makes absolutely everything himself...from the design to the sewing to the buttons and belts...
so this was one part of the Japanese economy that needed to be supported..

Continuing on down the mountain...and at times we wished we had taken an alternative form of transportation, especially since we seemed to get lost and the way got longer.....