We had a mid-morning shinkansen (bullet train) to catch, so we decided to squeeze in one last little bit of sight-seeing.  I wanted Paul to see Ryoanji, a famous Zen walled rock garden with raked gravel in the north west of Kyoto.

 

It was just beginning to rain as we dived into the Kyoto metro system – a simple, clean underground railway network – then surfaced to take the bus to our destination.

 

 

As we were early we had avoided the crowds.  We wandered past a large pond – or small lake perhaps, which had little islands in the middle artfully arranged with bridges, cherry blossom and Japanese pine.  Again, achingly Japanese and achingly beautiful.  We wandered up the pathway to Ryoanji temple where we took off our shoes and wandered along the polished wooden corridor to the famous garden, which is viewed from the wooden verandah along the side of the buildling.

 

 

A large tree was in full cherry blossom bloom (mankai) and cascading down over the famous thousand year wall made with oil plaster.  Age had created interesting patterns in the oil, which can be contemplated along with the calming, sobering arrangement of stones in the garden itself.

 

It’s said that the longer you gaze upon the garden and contemplate it in meditative mood, the more you begin to see in it; the garden is intended to have different meanings for each individual that sees it; a mysterious garden whose origin is uncertain but which has become one of the great symbolic gardens of Japan.  David Hockney has taken one of his photo collages here; I attempted an amateurish version to recreate once settled in Australia.

 

I felt soothed and centred when I rose from my seat on the edge of the platform, and together with Paul we walked around the side of the temple building.  Plants and bushes surrounded the house, elegantly pruned and arranged, with moss cultivated between bamboo trunks.  There is a famous stone urn here into which water flows – around the edges is inscribed the characters: `I learn to be content”.  As I gazed upon these words, mulling over their wisdom, a tiny emerald green bird suddenly fluttered down to the edge of the stone to bathe in the water and take a drink.

 

 

Having wrung what we could out of Kyoto in the short time we had there, we vowed to come back again next year so we could to experience its other extraordinarily beautiful season: autumn.  With some sadness at leaving the city (though we wouldn’t miss Sybil all that much) we were excited about our next adventures.  We returned to Kyoto station, where we had stuffed our luggage into lockers.  The next bullet train ride would take us further south west, on to Hiroshima, from where we were to catch a local train and ferry to the sacred island of Miyajima.