Whenever I used to get nervous about coming to Japan, the best way to relax myself was to go on Google images and look at pictures of Kyoto in autumn. It's fair to say I was pretty excited for the season to start. However, the most beautiful viewing spots in the city centre also come with the cost of being mad busy around this time of year. Luckily for me, a friend offered to drive to the (much quieter) top of Mount. Hiei 比叡山 to do some maple leaf exploring!
Hieizan lies North East of Kyoto, between Kyoto and Shiga prefecture. At the top of the mountain is Enryaku-ji, a huge Buddhist monastery which is the headquarters of the Tendai branch of Buddhism. It's location in the North East is important, since this direction is bad luck in Fusui (the Japanese version of Feng Shui) - building the monastery at the top of Mount Hiei thus protects Kyoto from all the bad vibes coming that way.
Enryaku-ji was founded in 1788 by a monk called Saicho. At this time the 6 main schools of Buddhism, based in the old capital Nara, were becoming increasingly corrupt so the Emperor wanted to support and encourage new branches - Tendai became the main one (though this branch didn't remain free from corruption either..). Tendai Buddhism was more accessible to the general population than previous branches had been, and pretty much all of the Big Dog's in Japanese Buddhist history studied at Enryaku-ji monastery at some time or another. In more recent news - it faced a huge scandal in 2006 because it accepted a ton of money from the Yakuza (like the Japanese mafia) to host a ceremony for their former leaders. Not very Buddhist of them. A lot of temples are really struggling to find money these days, so I guess it was desperate times. So yes, it's a really important place if you're into Japanese religion/history. But even if you're not into any of that, it's still beautiful!
Enryaku-ji is made up of 3 large areas, which I think would be hard to fit into 1 day if you really want to enjoy it all. After an amazing drive up the mountain we started with the biggest area which is called Todo:
Lovely maples, lovely buildings, all good. However it was still a little busy so we wandered off the path for a while and came across a smaller closed-up temple called Honen-do. Honen is super important in Japanese Buddhism since he founded the popular Jodo-shu/Pure Land branch, so it was surprising to find that a temple where he studied was so quiet and inconspicuous. Even though it was closed, the old lady looking after it noticed us and invited us in which led to my favourite part of the day! She sat us down, explained the history of the temple to us and then made us tea. But making tea isn't a straight forward thing in Japan. First there was the green tea and biscuits, then there was matcha and red-bean wafer sweets, then some type of black tea. She said she wanted to make us lunch too but didn't have enough ingredients. I don't think I'll ever get over how welcome some Japanese people can make you feel. She also let us practice calligraphy! Since I can't even read kanji let alone write it, I assume mine was awful, but it was really fun and relaxing anyway. It was a completely random find but we ended up spending hours there - the best kind of day :D
When we finally dragged ourselves away we were really hungry so got some soba noodles and more tea before moving on.
The final part of the day... the lovely old lady recommended the Yokawa area of Enryaku-ji which is the least visited. She said it would be quieter, and that it had the best momiji (maple leaves) at that time. She was definitely right! It was so peaceful there and the colours were insane. By this point I was a bit history-d out so just wandered round enjoying the views instead of reading up on what everything was.
It was a really great day and I'm so glad the autumn leaves lived up to my hours of Googling imaging. Enryaku-ji is quite a hassle to get to (easiest by car but there are expensive tolls, alternatively you can get the bus or cable car) but I think it's worth it and can fill up at least a day. The old lady at Honen-do was very enthusiastic about seeing us again so I guess I'll have to return!
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