Kyoto Trip: Kyoto Botanical Garden

If you get tired of the crowds of tourists milling about, the Kyoto Botanical Garden is a nice place where mostly only locals go to. The price of admission (200 yen) is cheap compared to other sites in Kyoto. There are lots of sakura trees on the grounds, so it is especially beautiful in the spring. There is also a greenhouse / conservatory (200 yen admission) that has lots of beautiful or weird exotic plants. This sketch is from inside the greenhouse. Since we had limited time and it was still too cold for most of the cherry blossoms to bloom, we spent most of our time inside the greenhouse. I'd definitely suggest a trip there if you have time and are tired of looking at temples.

Here's a google map of the Kyoto Botanical Garden:

Kyoto trip: Gion-kaku (祇園閣) in Daiunin (大雲院) temple

This tower is called Gion-kaku and it is on the grounds of Daiunin Temple. I didn't actually go inside since they aren't always open to the public, but I got a view of it while walking from Kiyomizudera towards Yasaka Shrine in Gion. Through Google searches, I found out that when it is open to the public, you can go up the tower and get a nice view of the Higashiyama district. The walls inside are decorated with paintings. It is a relatively new structure (built around 1928), so it looks a bit different from the older temples that are present in Kyoto. The roof is bronze, and even the color of the wood looks kind of new.

There's not much information about Daiunin Temple in English, but here's the TripAdvisor site. Here's a google map of the temple:

Kyoto Trip: Seimei Jinja (晴明神社)

Just got back from a trip to Kyoto. We were trying to see cherry blossoms, but there weren't many since it was cold the majority of the time. It was still really nice there. Surprisingly, I had no allergy problems there. I guess Japan just has less air pollution than Taiwan.

Anyway, this sketch is from a shrine that I visited called Seimei Jinja (晴明神社). There is a peach statue on the temple grounds, and you are supposed to be able to get rid of bad luck by rubbing it. Seimei Shrine is a bit small and more modern looking when compared to major shrines such as Kiyomizu-dera, but I still went because I've been a fan of Seimei ever since watching the movies Onmyoji 1 & 2. Seimei was a powerful onmyoji, which is something like a magician or sorcerer, during the Heian period in Japan and, his mother was a fox spirit. The shrine sells lots of cute pentagram charms/omamori.

Here is the google map for Seimei Shrine: