Ryoanji Temple

 I'm not going to lie... we never planned to go here! But when we left the Golden Pavillion we realised it was only a 30min walk away and we were enjoying the beautiful Kyoto fresh air! So we walked there. I think our main thought (that was proved wrong a number of times!) is that we though if we went to see the temples that is really ALL we would see, well each sightseeing place had a big area around it with parks or shops! The autumn leaves were especially beautiful here!

At the top of these stairs is where the temple is, it was old and made from wood. We were asked to take our shoes of on the wooden floor and there was barely any noise, just the sounds of the wind and the birds cherpping, We both felt the Zen like feeling, and we sat and looked at the Zen Rock Garden for about 5 mins, we only left because we thought other people would want to sit down!

Now, I don't know what feeling you get when you look at this picture, but I can recall the sense of relaxation from when we were there and it is very.... reassuring. I think that's the world I'm looking for. It was indescribable, So we were pleased we went to see it!

Now this totally amazed me... the tree was practically dead and it had no leafs or anything growing on it apart from these 2 small peaches hanging from the dead tree over the river! Awesome!!!