A Boxing Day bike adventure in Higashiyama

So I thought, after painstakingly uploading all these photos via my phone Blogger interface, that it was so buggy that it just lost them when I switched apps, and was sufficiently frustrated and discouraged that I couldn't be bothered to repost them. But no, it just hid the draft post somewhere...

So here's what I did on a lovely clear day over the Christmas-New Year holiday that, according to the date on this pictures, appears to have been Boxing Day!  I headed out on my bike, down to the river, and got off at Demachiyanagi to go over to the Higashiyama area.  This is known for various temples and the Philosopher's Path, Tetsugaku-no-michi, a charming stretch down by the canal. 

This is going to be spectacular in cherry blossom season.




Before meandering down here, though, I went up to Ginkaku-ji, the "Silver Pavilion". It's not actually silver, just called that to distinguish it from Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, on the other side of town. But it does have a beautifully laid out garden, and some wonderful views over the city.


I was initially puzzled by what looked like a large grey concrete mound labelled something about moon-viewing. This seemed like a very odd thing to feature in a Japanese garden, until I realised that its smooth, unblemished solid surface was actually formed from carefully swept-together and moulded sand!  In fact, there is an entire garden of sand, raked into carefully harmonious patterns. (I wonder what happens when it rains...



One day I'm going to figure out how to make Blogger reliably put photos side by side.  Til then, filling the empty space with pointless text it is!

Perfect reflections in the tranquil lake...

... and a view over the city to the west.

  

Here we have what I made out from the characters to be a "tea-spring", and a reflection of the pavilion itself. (Blogger, I do not understand how you work with photos and alignments. Don't tell me I'm going to have to start editing in HTML!)

So ok, Blogger phone interface apparently saved some of the photos and deleted the rest.  I'm going to post this before it changes its mind!  Part 2... later.