Clay wall

This is the outer wall of a temple and made of clay, old or broken tile roofs. These were used as a design pattern. It was a nice recycle system.
Anyway, have a happy New Year!!
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A house for viewing the moon

This used to be a small house for viewing the moon. There used to be no TV, radio, DVD, CD and movie in those days. Viewing the moon was one of the major enjoyment at night.

The sharp of roof is just like a bird and the house seems to be about to fly...

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Zen garden 3

This is a Zen garden in Ryoanji, the most famous one in Kyoto.
My personal thought about this garden
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Wooden floor

This is a wooden floor and daily maintenance for many decades have made the grain show up and the floor mild and tasteful.
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A dancing tree

This is a cedar in a park in Kyoto. It looks like dancing. Or skating like Shizuka Arakawa, the gold medalist in Torino Olympic?


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A wooden shelf

This is a shelf in tea house and on the shelf are put some tools of tea ceremony.
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Checker board design part 3

This is another checker board pattern in a temple, Tofukuji Temple. This pattern is composed of gravels and trimmed azaleas.

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Checker board design part 2

This is another garden in a temple, Tofukuji Temple. This pattern is composed of mosses and stones.
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Checker board design part 1

This is a garden in a temple, Tofukuji Temple. This temple seems to like the pattern.
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Sand and the moon

There is a truncated cone behind a lower horizontal mould. Both of them are made of sand added with a little quartz. Why do they have quartz? Because they can receive the moonlight and shine softly when the night with a clear sky come.

These are made and are based on the pond and the moon. The moonlight turns the flat surface on the top of the truncated cone into the moon and the lower one with stripe pattern into the pond. We cannot see them at night since the temple is closed, but the object would be beautiful....

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Old and new in Ginkakuji Temple

This is neither in a sandbox nor in a beach. This is an object in a garden of a temple. What purpose is it made for, anyway? The purpose is unclear but some says that a bonze used to heap up sand for sanding a path. The heap gradually turned to be like this.

This object looks rather modern. But more than 500 years old building also is in this temple. The old mixed with the modern in this temple.
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A path to a teahouse

This is a path to a teahouse. The distance between stepping stones is rather narrow. It is too dense for one step. Why are they put so dense? Because people walk on the stones slowly and enjoy seeing the garden fully. The dense stepping stones is a device for appreciating the garden.
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Shin-Gyou-Sou(真行草)

Shin-Gyou-Sou is styles of Japanese aesthetics: Shin is formal, Sou is casual and Gyou is between them. For example, temple's building is formal and Shin. A tea house is casual and Sou. The following paths are in Katsura Imperial Villa and in Daitokuji. The path of Shin style is often used at temples and the Sou is used at teahouses and villas.

This is Shin(真) style. Location by Google Map


This is Gyou(行) style. Location by Google Map


This is Sou(草) style. Location by Google Map

A tea house

This is a tea house. Tea house is usually small and simple one like this. Guests go into the house only through a small opening, called nigiri-guchi.
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A entrance to the realm of tranquility

This is the entrance of Shisendo Temple in Kyoto. A rustic gate welcome you and a flight of steps draw you inward into the realm of tranquility....

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Trace of some bird?

Two maple leaves stick onto the surface of the stone.

The leaves on the stone is just like the trace of some bird.

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The art of cleaning

This is a garden early in the morning and the garden is perfectly clean. Lots of lines, drawn by bamboo broom, set off the cleanliness.

By the way, here is an interesting small story about Senno Rikyu, one of great tea masters.

One day Rikyu told one of his pupils to make a garden clean and he cleaned up the garden immaculately. Even after he finished the cleaning, Rikyu said to him, "it is not enough." After that, he did another cleaning for a while and he asked Rikyu if he stop cleaning again. Rikyu said, "No, not enough!" Then Rikyu surprisingly began to shake a tree in the garden to make leaves falling onto the ground. He intended to make the ground feel more clean by putting some leaves.

Turning the perfect into the imperfect, Rikyu thought, made the perfection more perfect and added the depth to the perfection.

He preferred asymmetry to symmetry, imperfection to perfect, simplicity to flamboyance. These are some of criterion in tea ceremony.

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Fence

This is a fence made of thin branches and bamboos, well harmony with the natural surroundings.

Old but modern.

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Zen garden again

This garden is rather simple, composed of little gravels, mosses, a few rock and a small tree. The contrast between mosses of green and gravels of white is also nice.

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Why do maikos make their faces so white?

Why do they make up their faces so white?

Because they used to dance under the dark light of candle at night in those days and only white makeup can make them look as beautiful as under the sun.

Maikos dance elegantly at small evening and night parties to make the guests enjoy. In those day the party used to hold at night only under the dark candle light. So they need to make up their faces so white to make them look as beautiful as in the daytime.

Now we use fluorescent lamps to lighten gloomy rooms at night even in the traditional house and the rooms look light just like the daytime. A candle is used only in electric power failure, occurred once in some years.

We can truly enjoy the beauty of maiko only under the candle light, not under the fluorescent lamps.
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A maple leaf in water

A maple leaf, kaede in Japanese, is floating in water.

The name, kaede, comes from kaeru-no-te, frog's palm.

It surely would be alike if the leaf were green.
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Combination

The picture was actually taken in November.

The maple on your side turned red but the cider trees on the other side stay green.
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The tatami mat for the Emperor

The Emperor used to sit on this tatami at annual events.

He sat on a higher place, a thicker tatami mat, and it is edged with wider belt than usual.

These mean that the tatami is for high-ranking people.
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Tokonoma

This is called Tokonoma. little alcove and the heart of a house.

This is now included with a room to receive guests.

On it are exhibited scroll pictures, calligraphy or ikebana, flower arrangement to receive guests.

On the frame of Tokonoma are used the most expensive and greatest woods of all woods in a house.

Tokonoma plays an important role especially in a teahouse.
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Breaking the silence softly

This is a stone basin under a rainwater guttering.

Just a tiny drop from the guttering makes the scenery on the surface distorted. The scenery will get back some time later.

A water drop break the silence softly.
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Zen garden

This is Zen garden and very clean and neat one.
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Nigiri-guchi, the entrance for a teahouse

This is a little entrance for a little teahouse. The entrance is about 80 centimeters square.

Why is it so small??

There are mainly two reasons.

First, the small entrance is to put the differences of the class aside. Samurais, high-ranking social class of warriors, used to exist in those days. (In Japan, the class society used to exist in those days. The members were samurais, traders, craftworkers and peasants. Samurais were superior to the others. Now the class no longer exist.) They always carried a sword, katana, with them. The sword is the symbol of samurais, or their class. Samurais without the sword meant that they were equal to the other classes.

Samurais needed to put the sword aside to pass through the small door. This meant that all the classes were equal in the teahouse and that the social class had nothing to do with a tea ceremony. This is one of the most important spirits of tea ceremony.

Second, the entrance were made small to suit the smallness of a teahouse. The small entrance make the small house feel natural. If the entrance is normal size, people will feel the house too small.

That's why the entrance is very small.

By the way, I personally like the light from the entrance into the inside.

Reference:
http://artofjpn2.blogspot.com/2006/10/tea-house-in-kyoto-taian-tea-house.html

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Green

They are looking at a garden, covered with mosses, in a temple and sipping a cup of green tea. Some temple serves green tea to visitors in Kyoto. A peaceful moment ....
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