Wednesday, 16 April 2008
After the previous night’s excesses a basic breakfast downstairs was all we needed before setting off once again on the temple circuit.
The alarm, bells should have been ringing when we walked out of the hotel and boarded a bus heading towards our initial destination, since there were an inordinate number of high school students out on the streets when (just before nine o’clock) they should have been in class.
Our first stop, officially Rokuonji (Deer Garden Temple) but more often referred to as Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion Temple) and dates back to the late fourteenth-century was, in keeping with its reputation, quite spectacular but, on a day when half the High Schools in Japan seemed to have decided to organize a cultural awareness excursion, extremely crowded.
After passing through the Chinese-style gate, we started our tour through the grounds standing beside the Mirror Pool as hundreds of digital cameras were pointed towards the three-storey structure with its gold-leaf covering.