三十三間堂 （Sanjusangendo)

This was our first stop of the day. This was a Buddhist temple with a lot of statues inside. Because it is a Buddhist temple, the floors were made of wood and we had to take off our shoes before going in. I was wearing lace up rain boots, so it was a bit of a pain to take them off. Inside the temple was a long hallway with hundreds of statues. A lot of the statues were based off Hindu figures - like Vishnu. There was also a Storm God that looked cool. Even though the entire hall was filled with statues, each one had different clothes and a different face. The faces and inset crystal eyes that made their faces seem more real. At different places throughout the hallway you could pay to burn a large candle or incense to ask for blessings. I don`t really know how to describe the smell of the incense, but it was a very Japanese smell. It is the same kind of incense that obaachan burns every morning and night. Pictures were forbidden, so I won`t be putting up any pictures of the interior, but I have several nice pictures of the outside. After the hallway with the large Buddha and all of the other statues, there was another hall that you went down to return to the entrance where you stored your shoes. This hallway had information about the building, historical people, and events from this area. the one I thought was the coolest was an archery competition that was held here. There were several different events in the competition, including best shot with 100 arrows, best shot with 1000 arrows, and most arrows shot in 24 hours. There were also competitions for children. I thought the 24 hour competition sounded cool. The competition started at 6:00 pm and continued for 24 hours straight. During the night the targets were lit by giant bonfires. The record for the most arrows shot was a little over 13,000. That is a ton! There were also two other competitors who shot over 10,000 arrows during that time frame. The sign said how many arrows per minute, but I forget what it was.

After we exited the temple, me and two of the other interns bought fortunes, just for fun. Mine was `good`. I will try to post the picture I took of it later.

We walked around the gardens outside for a bit, and then headed off to our next destination: Kiyomizudera.