Mount Omine – and Tenkawa Gorge – Hyakumeizan #10

Mount Omine – and Tenkawa Gorge – Hyakumeizan #10

After my rainy climb of Mount Ibuki, I hopped a train to Kyoto, and then an hour south to Nara Prefecture (the home of the ancient capital city of Nara, but also many even more ancient historical sites – as well as mountains). The following morning, I traveled even farther south, to  Dorogawa Onsen (an onsen is a Japanese hot spring resort) and Omine-san, one of Japan’s most sacred peaks. It remains so sacred, in fact, that women are not allowed to climb it.

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A Visit to Tofuku-ji

I love sharing photographs from my research trips to Japan, both because of my fondness for Japanese culture, history, and architecture and because I like giving context to go along with the images. (I notice a lot of online photos show the setting, but don’t explain it, and I hope my “virtual tours” will help give context to these incredible sites.) Today, we’re visiting Tofuku-ji, a Rinzai Zen Buddhist temple just south of Kyoto that also provided one of the settings for my first Hiro Hattori / Shinobi mystery, Claws of the Cat.   In fact, the Sanmon at Tofuku-ji is the oldest such gate in

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