Some additional photos of Chion-in. Since I don't have much more to say about this temple, I'll go off completely on a tangent to talk about Japanese food. This is a general topic I can use as a filler when there are more pics than words, so for now I'll talk about breakfast, which I think is the weirdest meal of the day in Japan. Asians generally, and Japanese in particular, don't get the idea that different foods are for different parts of the day, so breakfast is pretty much like any other meal of the day, which is tough for a foreigner first thing in the morning. You'll always have a salad, just like a Western side dish with choice of dressing. They'll probably do a separate dish of radishes, which are particularly popular in Japan due to their utter tastlessness. Seaweed figures prominently as well, and of course fish, usually broiled salmon. On the plus side, I think breakfasts are the key reason the average Japanese lives to be 170 years old. On the minus side, 170 years of starting your day with seaweed and radishes?

I'm sure you remember the earlier story of the monk who starved himself to death and used to pray 60,000 times a day. Well, do ya? The Chion-in temple was built on the site where he died, and is now the headquarters of the Buddhist sect descended from his original followers. The entrance to the temple at left is quite majestic, and opens into a huge open space with temples and monks' quarters sprinkled around. In most of the buildings, the floors are constructed as "nightingale floors", which make a distinctive noise every time they're stepped on in order to alert the monks to intruders. I can see the benefit of this at night, but during the day, wouldn't it be like being surrounded by kids with those horrible sound and light shows built into their shoes?