As soon as I walked onto the temple grounds...wait...what? Are they FEEDING that tree BBQ Sauce?
Somehow cherry blossom trees manage to live over a 1,000 years old in some parts of Japan (as well as other mid life expectancy trees). This may be the secret reason why!
Aaaanyways, that was strange. As we entered the grounds we were greeted with a beautiful late blooming plum blossom tree before entering the garden.
Unfortunately, the experience of Ryouanji just wasn't the same. It seems that the 'peacefulness' of the Zen Garden is inversely proportional to the amount of people there at the time. Said plainly, having 100 people around you all battling for peaceful seat at the temple is hardly....peaceful. I can only imagine what a solitary experience would be like. And, given the never-ending crowds that swarm Kyoto's most popular destinations like Ryouanji, experiences like that will be left to the imagination forever.
What began as a hope to capture the 'peace' of Ryouanji quickly changed script. There was little peace to capture that day, so I captured something else....
Lots of feet.
I stuck around a while and tried my best to get some good snaps, but I just couldn't create a garden perspective with lots of people in it...
Finally I decided to get a bit closer to garden's rocks to try and capture some of the perfect details that have come to define Ryouanji.
I thought the photo would look best black and white
On the way out there were some pretty neat hand sketched walls and doors inside the temple structures. With no tripods or flash allowed, I had to anchor myself against a wall to get a steady shot.
Don't you wish you could some old monk to do this to a room in your house?
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