Lower Sagi Toriimoto Historic Preservation District

 

Sagi Toriimoto is an Historic Preservation District in Arashiyama, near Kyoto

In an earlier post, I covered the upper section, a group of thatched, 400 year old buildings, a couple of which still operate as eateries.

This section is more visited and includes plenty of retail establishments as well as private houses.

One of the old houses is open as a kind of free museum about the district.

The Sagi Toriimoto Town Conservation Museum is in a row of traditional machiya townhouses.

The exterior has a facade of lattices and mullioned windows.

The interior has raised tatami floors and some Meiji-era features including a coal-burning kitchen and interior water well.

The building dates back to the early Meiji Period and was renovated in 1993.

There are historic maps, photos, and architectural diagrams of the area.

A diorama shows how the area looked in 1930.

The previous post in this series on Arashiyama was on the upper section of Sagi Toriimoto.

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Upper Saga Toriimoto Historic Preservation District

 

Saga Toriimoto is a small district at the very edge of Kyoto, up a narrow road leading to the mountain Atago Shrine.

It is one of the historic architectural preservation districts in Kyoto, though I would wager probably the least visited.

In my last post, I looked at two of the 400-year-old thatched buildings still operating as eateries.

This time, some of the other thatched buildings around the same area.

The area was originally farmhouses, but developed into a "shrine town" serving the growing number of pilgrims heading up to Atago Shrine.

Toriimoto means "around the torii", the vermilion first torii on the path up the mountain.

I became quite fascinated by these preservation districts, of which there are more than 120 scattered around Japan.

Some are well-known and very touristy, but many are off the beaten track and, to my mind, a bit more authentic.

click on the "preservation district" tag at the bottom of this post for more of my posts on them.

I believe the tags don't show in the smartphone version of these pages..... 

The previous post in this series on Arashiyama was on the kaiseki restaurants in two of the thatched former farmhouses.

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Otagi Nembutsuji Temple Arashiyama Kyoto

Kyoto

Otagi Nembutsuji Temple is now located in a narrow valley just outside Arashiyama, usually a bit too far for most tourists to walk to.

However, it was originally located on the other side of Kyoto and was only moved here in 1922.

The original temple was founded in 766 and was built in the Higashiyama district, not too far from Gion.

It later became a Shingon temple but was completely destroyed when the Kamo River flooded.

It was restored as a Tendai temple.

It fell into disrepair and was restored several more times.

In 1922 what remained of the temple, mostly its Nio Gate, Main Hall, and Jizo Hall, were relocated to the current site.

During the War it once again became uninhabited.

Its final restoration began in 1955.

In 1980, a ten-year repair and renovation of the Niomon began.

The following year the project that has become the symbol of the temple began. The head priest, a sculptor himself, started teaching visitors how to carve Rakan statues.

Now more than 1200 have been completed and can be seen throughout the temple grounds...

They deserve a couple of posts which will come later...

If you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts.

Tenryuji Sogenchi Garden in Autumn

 

Though I usually try to post about less familiar sights in Japan, sometimes I go to the very popular places, especia;y when I have overseas visitors who want to see cliche Japan.

Sp here are some photos from one of the most photographed sites in Japan, the garden at Tenryuji Temple in Arashiyama, Kyoto.

If you like your zen moment to be shared with thousands of like-minded people, then Kyoto is the place to go;;;;

Tenryiji Temple is one of the World heritage sites in Kyoto.

The Sogenchi Garden is apparenty little changed from when it was created in the mid 14th cetury by Muso Soseki, the monk who founded the temple.

There are numerous gardens within the temples grounds, but the Sogenchi garden is the biggest and most well known.

Based around a large pond, the garden uses the "borrowed scenery" of the mountains behind.