Hiroshima Traces: Day 2: Northwest Kyoto

I spent the second day visiting the temples in Northwest Kyoto. I began at the zen temple Ryoan-ji, world famous for its centuries-old rock gardens, undiscovered until the 1930s. For some reason, there is a prohibition on photographing many of the best rock gardens at the zen temples, but I managed to find a few that allowed pictures.

From Ryoan-ji, I moved on to the Kyoto Museum for World Peace. Based at Ritsumeikan University, this isn't your run-of-the-mill Japanese peace museum, a la Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rather, it closely scrutinizes both Japanese and American imperialism and war crimes committed from the 1930s through the end of World War II. The final leg of the exhibit historicizes contemporary conflicts, from Guatemala and El Salvador to the Israeli Occupation, in the context of WWII imperialism, explaining what has changed and what has not. Included in the WWII display were some original Japanese anti-war pamphlets, as well as some colonialist propaganda materials:

After leaving the museum, I walked to the nearby temple Kinkaku-ji, "The Golden Pavilion." Originally a 14th century shogun villa, it later became a temple, and it remained so until it was burned down by an angry monk in 1950. They've since rebuilt the temple, and it was regilded with taxpayer money in the 1980s.

After the museum, I walked to the gigantic zen temple complex of Daitoku-ji, home to over a dozen temples, many sporting rock gardens and impressive collections of 15th century art. I began with a meal of fucha-ryori, traditional vegetarian zen cuisine.