From there we made our way through the strolling garden that makes up the rest of the temple grounds temple grounds, passing the pond of Anmintaku and enjoying the foliage along the way. Once outside, we followed the road downhill to Ryoanji Temple, thinking that, judging by the lack of high school students on the ground, we might just have given them the slip, but as we neared the approaches to the temple, there they were in swarms again.
Of course, the best way to experience something like The Temple of the Peaceful Dragon would involve a lengthy period spent gazing at the temple’s famous dry landscape rock garden, with its fifteen boulders placed on a sea of raked gravel dating back to the late 1400s.