A path of tranquility🌿 A walk through the garden of Eun-gak-sa Temple

#Overseas travel 🏯 **Ginkaku-ji (銀閣寺, Ginkaku-ji)**, located in Kyoto Higashiyama, is one of Japan's representative temples loved for its quiet beauty. Unlike the splendid Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺), Ginkaku-ji is a space that contains harmony and thought between nature and people in restrained beauty and space. At its center is a garden filled with quiet beauty. ⸻ 📍 Location: 2 Ginkakujijicho, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan ⏰ Operating Hours: 08:30–17:00 (Last Admission 16:30) 💰 Admission Fee: Adults 500 yen / Middle and High School Students 300 yen / Children 200 yen 🚶 How to Get There: Take City Bus No. 5 or 17 from Kyoto Station and get off at Ginkakuji-mae Stop, then walk for about 5 minutes ⸻ 🌳 The garden of Ginkakuji is a circuit garden based on the Japanese dry landscape technique. The mossy hills, pine forests, natural rocks, silver sand, and calm ponds create completely different scenery depending on the path you walk, just like a single oriental painting. It's not just about 'seeing' the garden, but about 'experiencing' the scenery by walking. 💧 The first thing you see when you pass through the entrance is the neat silver sand garden **Ginsadan (銀沙灘)** and the cone-shaped **Kogetsudai (向月台)** next to it. Ginsadan symbolizes the sea covered in moonlight, and Kogetsudai is a symbolic place to meditate toward the moon. These two sculptures are the highlights and symbolic existences of the Ginkaku-ji garden, containing restrained beauty and thoughts on the flow of time. 🎐 The **Gyoyoji (鏡湖池)** behind it shows a landscape like a ‘static oriental painting’ where pine trees, islands, and buildings are reflected on the pond, and nature, architecture, and human traces come together as one. 🌿 If you go up the hill along the walking path, you will also find a quiet observation point where you can overlook the garden at a glance. The harmony of the sand garden, cultural center, and traditional wooden buildings seen from here is the perfect place to take pictures and rest your mind📸 🧘♀️ The garden of Ginkaku-ji Temple perfectly embodies the Japanese garden philosophy of ‘less is more’ through its static aesthetics, restrained composition, and delicate planting. Everywhere you look, moss is softly covered, and even a small stone feels like it was placed there for a reason. Every scenery you see while walking is like a meditation, and it slowly lets you reflect on the flow of nature and your emotions. ⸻ 🌙 Thoughts “Even though I just walked in silence, I felt like my mind was being organized. The dew on the grass, the pine trees reflected on the water, and even the delicate grains left on the sand… Even without doing anything, the garden of Ginkaku-ji Temple was a space that was sufficient and full in itself.”