On our last full day in Nagano, we went to the city's local treasure, the Zenkou-ji. It's a fantastically old temple, originally built sometime in the 7th century. The temple still functions as a pilgrimage destination for devout followers. I liked the dark base of the buildings paired with the glimmering gold touches, seen in the picture of the main shrine building to the left. The temple complex was small, but filled to the brim with buildings, gardens, statues, gods and goddesses, relics, etc. There was a particularly lovely stone lantern garden, that is noted by temple connoisseurs. Inside the temple was a very old wooden healer statue that everyone rubbed for health, which Matt (as the son of a doctor) found ironic. We didn't touch him.
Here's a few beautiful examples of the many architectural details on the main temple. To the left is an incredibly fat fu-dog, or temple guardian. To the right is the view across the front of the main temple. I love the perspective of the symmetrical bells with the dragon altar in the center, set before the massive wooden temple doors.
These are some statues we found in the gardens. The two cows with me are named Yoshiko and Mitsuko (from L-R). Yoshi is the alternate pronunciation of zen (goodness), and mitsu is the alternate pronunciation of kou (light), of zenkou. Matt made a face with one of the funniest-looking fu-dogs I've seen in Japan.
The building pictured above is the Kyouzou. It's very important and houses a huge relic filled with Buddhist sutras (barely visible through the middle door). Although we didn't go in, apparently visitors are allowed to rotate the sutras to gain enlightenment.
This is another part of the complex. The bridge leads to some smaller temples where people regularly worship (one is seen in the picture above this one as well). To the right is a nice shot of the main temple and gate seen across a half-frozen pond with a singular festival lantern.
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