Mt. Hiei

First thing this morning, several of us went to a nearby restaurant for breakfast. On the way back to the inn, I met a group of school children who were here on a field trip to a major temple across the street. Their teacher approached me and asked if they could practice their English. They had prepared sheets of questions like "where are you from" and "how do you like Kyoto". Then we took pictures. A classic moment of being in Japan.

Today was a day trip for the group to Mt. Hiei, an historically important temple complex dating from about the 700s. Many of the important people in the various sects of Buddhism in Japan did their initial training as monks here. Its about an hour by bus out of Kyoto. The temple buildings are in clusters covering a large area on the mountain, and we went to one called Enryakuji.

For lunch we went to a modern building in the temple complex, and had a meal that consisted of vegetarian specialties that monks eat on special occasions. There were vegetables related to potato and daikon, and sesame tofu, and a type of dried been and tempura with a matcha-salt over it. And in true Japanese style, the presentation was amazing.

On the way back into Kyoto we stopped at a garden called Shisen-do, that dates back to the 1500s. It was very hot today and we had done a lot of walking on Mt. Hiei, and this was a very peacefull setting to hang out and relax for a while before heading back to the inn.