![\"\"](\"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Carpentry_October-28_2023.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nUnintended consequences of the good variety<\/h2>\n
Kyoto is organised on a rectangular grid and that defines the main roads.<\/p>\n
But in between the main roads there is a myriad of small winding streets, drains, staircases that I cruise down on my bike, instead of using the main roads.<\/p>\n
And as a consequence, I periodically stumble across gems that I didn’t expect to find.<\/p>\n
Last weekend, we rode all the way across town from the East of Kyoto, where we live to the Western fringe.<\/p>\n
Our aim was to go to the Zen temple – Ry\u014dan-ji<\/a> – which is located in the north-west of the city.<\/p>\n The feature of the temple is the famous – Japanese dtry garden<\/a> (\u67af\u5c71\u6c34 or karenansui) – where a scaled-down version of some landscape is captured in a confined space, in this context a rectangular (25m x 10m) space enclosed on two sides by a clay wall that was boiled in oil and buildings on the other two sides.<\/p>\n Over time, the oil has leeched out of the clay and in the process has created a very distinctive visual pattern, which, in itself, is worth going to see.<\/p>\n The garden contains 15 rocks of different sizes and shapes carefully arranged in a five grouped piles with a small surround of living moss embedded in a large rectangular area of white pebbles that are carefully raked in to various patterns.<\/p>\n A visitor sits on a terrace abutting one of the longer sides and studies the garden.<\/p>\n It is austere but somehow contemplative.<\/p>\n I have read many accounts of this garden – yes, I study gardens in my spare time – and there have been countless attempts to attribute ‘meaning’ to what we behold.<\/p>\n One commentator though, I think, has it down correctly (translation from the 2003 book by G\u00fcnter Nitschke ‘Le jardin japonais : angle droit et forme naturelle’):<\/p>\n \nThe garden at Ry\u014dan-ji does not symbolize anything, or more precisely, to avoid any misunderstanding, the garden of Ry\u014dan-ji does not symbolize, nor does it have the value of reproducing a natural beauty that one can find in the real or mythical world. I consider it to be an abstract composition of ‘natural’ objects in space, a composition whose function is to incite meditation.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Anyway, here is one part of the rock garden:<\/p>\n But sometime after you exit the actual shrine and start to wander through the gardens, the unintended consequence emerges.<\/p>\n There is no reference to this place on the official guide you pick up at the entrance.<\/p>\n But through a little arbour, embedded in the most beautiful garden is smaller temple – \u9f8d\u5b89\u5bfa \u897f\u6e90\u9662 (the Ryoanji Saigen-in Temple) – which houses a delightful vegan restaurant – Ryoanji Yudofu – (or that serves the most glorious lunches at really reasonable prices.<\/p>\n As you approach the building you see it through the garden.<\/p>\n The cafe name refers to its only dish – \u6e6f\u8c46\u8150 or yudofu – which is hot boiled tofu (soft) mixed in a broth of seven herbs.<\/p>\n It comes with a dipping sauce of soy and ginger, plus rice and some pickles.<\/p>\n This is what the served table looks like:<\/p>\n And this is what you see while having lunch.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n