THE KYOTO MANGA MUSEUM & THE KINKAKU-JI TEMPLE

The Jones at The Kyoto Manga Museum

Last morning, The Jones stayed in Kyoto to visit The Kyoto International Manga Museum in Nakagyō-ku. It was a fantastic visit where the family could enjoy their favourite manga comics, learnt how to draw them, knew their origins and met some of the creators and illustrators.

After visiting the museum, still in Kyoto, the family visited Kinkaku-ji Temple, a wonderful ancient building which is a symbol of the Japanese architecture, religion and lifestyle.

Today, The Jones are visiting Mount Fuji. It's an amazing trip, especially for The Grandma, who is a great fan of volcanoes.

Read Pokemon Adventures

The Kyoto International Manga Museum is located in Nakagyō-ku, Kyoto. The building housing the museum is the former Tatsuike Elementary School. The museum opened on November 25, 2006. Its collection of 300,000 items includes such rarities as Meiji period magazines and postwar rental books.

Víctor Jones with some manga friends

The museum is a public-private partnership of Kyoto Seika University and the city of Kyoto. The city provided the building and land. The university operates the facility under the oversight of a joint committee.

The museum is divided into a number of public zones. One is the gallery zone; another is the research zone; the third is the collection zone. There are permanent and special exhibits, a Tatsuike history room, a museum shop, and a kissaten. The 200 m of stacks hold 50,000 volumes in the manga wall, which can be taken down and read freely.

More information: The Kyoto International Manga Museum

There are various places for reading the manga in the collection, the halls have various seats, and there are some reading rooms, together with some outdoor benches. On the first floor, there is a room with children's manga for young children and their parents. In front of the museum, there is also a large lawn with artificial turf; on nice days young couples often lie on the lawn, reading manga from the collection.

The museum holds many items of historical, as well as contemporary, interest. Highlights of the museum's collection include Japan Punch. Published by Charles Wirgman in Yokohama, it ran from the year Bunkyū 2 (1862) to Meiji 20 (1887). Japan's first manga magazine was Eshinbun Nipponchi from 1874. The nation's first children's manga magazine was Shonen Pakku, established in 1907.

More information: Nippon

Thinking you’re no-good and worthless is the worst thing you can do. 
You’ll stumble many times in the future, but when you do, 
each time you’ll have more strength to bounce back.
 

Nobi Nobita

Kinkaku-ji, literally Temple of the Golden Pavilion, officially named Rokuon-ji, literally Deer Garden Temple, is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto. It is one of the most popular buildings in Japan, attracting a large number of visitors annually. It is designated as a National Special Historic Site and a National Special Landscape, and it is one of 17 locations making up the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto which are World Heritage Sites.

More information: Kyoto Travel

The Jones at Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto

The site of Kinkaku-ji was originally a villa called Kitayama-dai, belonging to a powerful statesman, Saionji Kintsune. Kinkaku-ji's history dates to 1397, when the villa was purchased from the Saionji family by shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, and transformed into the Kinkaku-ji complex. When Yoshimitsu died, the building was converted into a Zen temple by his son, according to his wishes.

During the Onin war (1467–1477), all of the buildings in the complex aside from the pavilion were burned down.

On July 2, 1950, at 2:30 am, the pavilion was burned down by a 22-year-old novice monk, Hayashi Yoken, who then attempted suicide on the Daimon-ji hill behind the building. He survived, and was subsequently taken into custody. 

The monk was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released because of mental illnesses, persecution complex and schizophrenia, on September 29, 1955; he died of tuberculosis in March 1956. During the fire, the original statue of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was lost to the flames, now restored. A fictionalized version of these events is at the center of Yukio Mishima's 1956 book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

More information: Japan National Tourism Organization

The present pavilion structure dates from 1955, when it was rebuilt. The pavilion is three stories high, 12.5 meters in height. The reconstruction is said to be a copy close to the original, although some doubt such an extensive gold-leaf coating was used on the original structure. 

Grandma's old memories at Kinkaku-ji in the 50's

In 1984, the coating of Japanese lacquer was found a little decayed, and a new coating as well as gilding with gold-leaf, much thicker than the original coatings, was completed in 1987. Additionally, the interior of the building, including the paintings and Yoshimitsu's statue, were also restored. 

Finally, the roof was restored in 2003. The name Kinkaku is derived from the gold leaf that the pavilion is covered in. 

Gold was an important addition to the pavilion because of its underlying meaning. The gold employed was to mitigate and purify any pollution or negative thoughts and feelings towards death. Other than the symbolic meaning behind the gold leaf, the Muromachi period heavily relied on visual excesses. 

With the focus on the Golden Pavilion, how the structure is mainly covered in that material, creates an impression that stands out because of the sunlight reflecting and the effect the reflection creates on the pond.

More information: Japan Guide

 Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, 

men cannot live without a spiritual life. 

Buddha