Kinkakuji
It’s not just gold that’s shining right now at one of Japan’s most beautiful historical sites.
World Heritage-listed Golden Pavilion is currently covered up for repairs, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to see the building.
After looking at the brilliant gold leaf covering the World Heritage-listed temple, you can now eat it too, in a beautifully presented ice cream cone.
With our Japan Wish competition winner Ashley now in Kyoto, the former capital of Japan, she now has access to many of Japan’s most popular tourist destinations, like Kinkakuji, or the Golden Pavillion, that we hope she makes her way to sometime during her stay.
This temple, which gets its name from the gold leaf that covers the upper two stories of the pavilion, was built during the Muromachi period (1337–1573), when much of the traditional Japanese art and culture recognized today began to flourish thanks to beneficial relationships between Japan and China as well as the spread of Zen Buddhism. This extended to architecture as well, where ornate decorations like gold leaf on Buddhist temples acted as a purifier against pollution of the outside world and inside the mind (on top of its structural benefits against weather and decay).
Over time, Kanazawa area of Ishikawa Prefecture, which produced the gold leaf used for Kinkakuji, became Japan’s top producer in gold leaf. Even today, Kanazawa produces 99% of the country’s gold leaf, and recently a wonderful documentary highlighting this traditional art has been garnering praise online both domestically and abroad.
Over the past few days Japan has been battered by nonstop snowstorms. Parts of Niigata have gotten over two meters (6.5ft) of snowfall, with surrounding prefectures getting nearly just as much, extending as far north as Hokkaido and south as Kyoto. This has unfortunately already resulted in eleven deaths and hundreds of canceled flights, and even more snow is expected over the next several days.
But always one to look on the bright side, Japan has recently been reveling in just how darn pretty the famous Kinkakuji temple in Kyoto looks with freshly fallen snow.
Oh, Minecraft. You masterful time-suck! How is it that I can spend thirty hours of my life playing you, but only land up with a shanty of a shack and a tunnel that continues into the ground because I got bored and decided to pickax it up (at least I found diamonds!).
For those of you unfamiliar with the game, Minecraft is basically the game that never ends (yes it goes on and on, my friend). It’s an open world game with no specific goals and players are free to build and create anything they want by breaking and replacing blocks of different materials (dirt, stone, wood, etc) that can be found all over the virtually endless map. It’s surprisingly addicting.
You do not “win” Minecraft. You either 1) play until you’ve exhausted all of your creativity and fall on the floor in a crumbled heap after realizing how much time you’ve wasted (like me) or 2) build an incredibly elaborate, visually stunning block world that is the envy of the poor suckers who landed in category 1.
A user who goes by the name, Gawara, has earned his rightful spot amongst the envied Minecrafters in category 2 by recreating the entire city of Kyoto out of Minecraft blocks.