Nara and Kyoto
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"These visits to Kyoto and Nara are the last trips in a month of extensive travel in Japan using both local trains and the Shinkansen. In the autumnal light we take the train from Gifu to Kyoto. The journey via Maibara takes about an hour”.
First stop is Kyoto’s Nishiki Market 錦市場, a thriving shopping precinct, an undercover and narrow alley, which stretches for five blocks in the downtown district. Most of what is here is food related.
Kyoto’s Nishiki Market is full of small shops and stalls with their displays of seafood, fruit and vegetables, chestnuts, tea, sweets and cooking utensils and so much more.
Stallholders cook seafood on small cookers. We stop at a Sushi Restaurant in the market for an early lunch.
Now on to some history, next stop the Museum of Kyoto which incorporates The Bank of Japan Kyoto Field Office, a historic building occupied by the bank until 1965 and designated a National Important Cultural Property at the time when the building was reimagined to become the Heian Museum.
The building was designed by Kingo Tatsuno, and early modernist architect from Saga Prefecture. Kingo based his design on a style contemporary to England at that time. The original building was completed in 1906. In its current use, the Museum of Kyoto was opened in 1988.
The museum, which includes an adjoining and more contemporary building is in three main sections, a film hall of Kyoto, an art gallery and a gallery of Kyoto history.
Closer to Kyoto’s main station is the Higashi-Honganji Temple. The site contains the largest wooden building in Kyoto.
The buildings we see today date from 1895, the original temple buildings destroyed by a series of fires. The purpose and history of the development of these temple buildings are complex, the Higashi Honganji and the adjoining Nishi Honganji are the temples of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Japanese Buddhism. Jodo Shinshu was founded in 1272 by Shinran.
After a brief visit to the temple we head across the road to the Shosei-en Garden, a separate and slightly distant but related enclave to the Higashi Honganji. The garden was established on the site of the residence of the thirteenth Abbot, Sennyo Shonin.
It is possible the garden was designed by calligrapher and poet, Ishikawa Jozan, and the garden gets its name Shosei-en from a line in a poem Let me return home again by Jin Dynasty poet Tao Yuanming.
Kyoto’s Nishiki Market is full of small shops and stalls with their displays of seafood, fruit and vegetables, chestnuts, tea, sweets and cooking utensils and so much more.
Stallholders cook seafood on small cookers. We stop at a Sushi Restaurant in the market for an early lunch.
Now on to some history, next stop the Museum of Kyoto which incorporates The Bank of Japan Kyoto Field Office, a historic building occupied by the bank until 1965 and designated a National Important Cultural Property at the time when the building was reimagined to become the Heian Museum.
The building was designed by Kingo Tatsuno, and early modernist architect from Saga Prefecture. Kingo based his design on a style contemporary to England at that time. The original building was completed in 1906. In its current use, the Museum of Kyoto was opened in 1988.
The museum, which includes an adjoining and more contemporary building is in three main sections, a film hall of Kyoto, an art gallery and a gallery of Kyoto history.
Closer to Kyoto’s main station is the Higashi-Honganji Temple. The site contains the largest wooden building in Kyoto.
The buildings we see today date from 1895, the original temple buildings destroyed by a series of fires. The purpose and history of the development of these temple buildings are complex, the Higashi Honganji and the adjoining Nishi Honganji are the temples of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Japanese Buddhism. Jodo Shinshu was founded in 1272 by Shinran.
After a brief visit to the temple we head across the road to the Shosei-en Garden, a separate and slightly distant but related enclave to the Higashi Honganji. The garden was established on the site of the residence of the thirteenth Abbot, Sennyo Shonin.
It is possible the garden was designed by calligrapher and poet, Ishikawa Jozan, and the garden gets its name Shosei-en from a line in a poem Let me return home again by Jin Dynasty poet Tao Yuanming.
Nara
The next day we travel to Nara, the once and ancient capital of Japan. Like Kyoto, Nara is something of a visitor hotspot, so the city is packed and visiting museums and galleries becomes difficult because of the crowds.
In Nara we do manage to visit the Nara National Museum (1895) and one of Japan’s oldest museums.
Nara Park is known for the Sika Deer Cervus nippon that live in the park and roam adjoining streets, oblivious to the large crowds of visitors and constant traffic. The trees in Nara Park provide a canopy of tranquillity, of shade from the hot sun, reminding us of the beauty of nature.
The Nara National Museum complex and collection has been developed over a period of 130 years and includes the once named Imperial Nara Museum building. The original building was designated as an Important Cultural Property in 1969. The building, western in architectural style, was designed in the style of Yamaguchi architect Katayama Tokuma.
The Nara National Museum’s Buddhist Sculpture Hall houses a masterful collection of Buddhist Sculptures, probably the greatest collection of these works in Japan. The sculpture hall has been newly renovated and exhibition spaces redesigned to improve the opportunity to view these objects. These changes including the installation of new exhibition cases for smaller works made from super transparent glass and removing larger works from their cases so that they can be viewed without interruption. As is the case in all great museums in Japan, consideration is given to the impact of earthquakes and cases and installations all feature earthquake mitigating technologies to ensure the works are kept safe.
In its early history, the museum was the keeping place for many great works from the ancient temples of the Nara region. Following the war, many temples built their own keeping places.
We spent quite a long time looking at the exhibition Master works from the Nara Buddhist Sculpture Hall, a number of which are National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties.
Andrea and I are interested in how art is made, that is the techniques used to make objects – or whatever the media / medium happens to be. So we spent time investigating how Buddhist Sculptures, which vary vastly in scale, are constructed.
During our travels in India and Indonesia we have visited the makers and artisans of religious sculptures and it was interesting to see how the techniques of making had evolved in Japan.
Nara
The next day we travel to Nara, the once and ancient capital of Japan. Like Kyoto, Nara is something of a visitor hotspot, so the city is packed and visiting museums and galleries becomes difficult because of the crowds.
In Nara we do manage to visit the Nara National Museum (1895) and one of Japan’s oldest museums.
Nara Park is known for the Sika Deer Cervus nippon that live in the park and roam adjoining streets, oblivious to the large crowds of visitors and constant traffic. The trees in Nara Park provide a canopy of tranquillity, of shade from the hot sun, reminding us of the beauty of nature.
The Nara National Museum complex and collection has been developed over a period of 130 years and includes the once named Imperial Nara Museum building. The original building was designated as an Important Cultural Property in 1969. The building, western in architectural style, was designed in the style of Yamaguchi architect Katayama Tokuma.
The Nara National Museum’s Buddhist Sculpture Hall houses a masterful collection of Buddhist Sculptures, probably the greatest collection of these works in Japan. The sculpture hall has been newly renovated and exhibition spaces redesigned to improve the opportunity to view these objects. These changes including the installation of new exhibition cases for smaller works made from super transparent glass and removing larger works from their cases so that they can be viewed without interruption. As is the case in all great museums in Japan, consideration is given to the impact of earthquakes and cases and installations all feature earthquake mitigating technologies to ensure the works are kept safe.
In its early history, the museum was the keeping place for many great works from the ancient temples of the Nara region. Following the war, many temples built their own keeping places.
We spent quite a long time looking at the exhibition Master works from the Nara Buddhist Sculpture Hall, a number of which are National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties.
Andrea and I are interested in how art is made, that is the techniques used to make objects – or whatever the media / medium happens to be. So we spent time investigating how Buddhist Sculptures, which vary vastly in scale, are constructed.
During our travels in India and Indonesia we have visited the makers and artisans of religious sculptures and it was interesting to see how the techniques of making had evolved in Japan.
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