Kitano Tenmangu

My Rating: 8.2

I had never heard of Kitano Tenmangu before, and I'll assume you haven't either. No worries though, the place isn't that important. Once upon a time there was some monk. He was exiled. Centuries later they regretted exiling him and built this temple in his name. He loved plum blossoms, so they planted thousands of trees! Now in 2011, we get to enjoy them!

The commanding presence of the plum trees really made the visit enjoyable (probably much more enjoyable than the other 51 weeks of the year when they aren't around). For that reason, I gave it a pretty positive rating.

Anyways, here's a few photos I took in our 30 minute jog through the temple.

Blossoms as soon as we entered the temple

We saw quite a few school aged kids painting the blossoms.

Entering through the grove.

Now, this next photo is going to be a trend I think. I'm absolutely amazed at how many people have cameras. If I had to make a guess with money, I'd say somewhere in the vicinity of 90% of people have some sort of photo device. With the emergence of convenient point and shoots, but more importantly camera's on cell phones, it seems like everyone stops to take a photo.

Four people, four cameras.

Anyways, Kitano Tenmangu was a pretty great place during the Plum Blossom Season (mid-march). To finish these off, we even saw a real holy cow.

I thought for a second the Pearson's dog had been enshrined in Japan. Anastasia clarified that it was a holy cow. I agreed. There was no way that dog was gonna make it past Mt. Hope Street, let alone Japan. R.I.P.!