We got back to Kyoto yesterday afternoon, and we checked into the townhouse we're renting. It's a big, old, 10 room townhouse in Central Kyoto that dates from the late 1800s. It's just us here, so it's sort of like renting a beach house. It is absolutely beautiful with two interior gardens, rice paper screens, and beautiful woodwork. We spent yesterday afternoon drawing and sketching the house, and then we went out to dinner to another conveyor belt sushi place.
Our machiya
Today we headed to the western edge of Kyoto to see a historic district called Sagatorimoto. The first part of our trip was designed to look at specific sites and buildings, and now we're looking at architecture on a larger scale (as in whole neighborhoods and cities). Sagatorimoto includes many traditional Japanese homes as well as a temple complex, and it's situated at the foot of the mountains. The temple complex was really interesting because in the 20th century, 8,000 gravemarkers were collected from the surrounding area and reconfigured in one massive cemetery. The gravemarkers were previously decaying in random bamboo groves, and they date from as early as 700 A.D.
A streetscape in Sagatorimoto
The field of gravemarkers (Buddha stones) oriented around the central stupa, seen through the surrounding fenceI have to admit, I really love Kyoto, and if I were to move to Japan, I might pick Kyoto over Tokyo. The way it's situated on a river between mountains reminds me a little of Virginia, and the mountain ranges around the city look a whole lot like the Blue Ridge. Plus, there's geishas everywhere.
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