If you're following along with the Scripture Memory / Dwell Richly printable, here's the verse for week 4:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)
Welcome to the second part of S. Higashiyama. I'm not gonna lie, we actually have no idea what this temple is called. It's been around for hundreds of years, so surely someone can tell us what it is, right?
How we ended up here: Remember how I said 'we followed the walking tours described in the Lonely Planet Kyoto travel guide (with a few detours, of course)'? Well, this was one of those detours. JD found a path at the top of the cemetery behind Chion-In that led to the woods (it sounds a lot creepier than it really was). So we follow this path with no clue of where it's leading us. Halfway up, I try to coerce JD to turn around but lo-and-behold, someone is walking down the mountain and persuades us to keep going up because there are some amazing views (beginning to sound like the blowhole detour in Hawaii, right?). We keep trekking up and see this amazing temple... with a chainlink fence surrounding it. It took us a solid thirty minutes before we could find the entrance. But we did. And it was well worth it.
This is also where a lady told me I was pronouncing "Arigatou" and "Kyoto" incorrectly. [The link will pull up the video we made at this location. Please disregard the knappy hair and the horrific pronunciations (it was only the first day! I promise it got better with time.)]
What did you eat? This was typically one of the first questions people asked us when we returned. Answer: Noodles. Lots and lots of noodles.