Kyoto - Kinkaku-ji Temple - Golden Pavilion

The shining Kinkaku "Golden Pavilion" is a symbol of Kyoto. 

 It was built at the end of the 14th century originally as a villa for Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the shogun at the time. After Yoshimitsu's death, as indicated in his will, the building was converted into a temple of the Zen sect of Buddhism, which is famous for the practice of zazen, or religious meditation

This temple has been burnt down many times in the flames of war and other conflagrations, and more recently by arson, which incident has been made famous by Yukio Mishima's novel, Kinkakuji (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion)

The garden is designed to provide a view of different scenes while walking around a large pond called Kyoko-chi in its center, and accounts for about 93,000 of the 132,000 square meter temple grounds. The Kyoko-chi Pond alone takes up 60,600 square meters and includes islands of various sizes such as Naka-jima and Iwa-jima. There are also rocks and stones of unusual shapes. These islands have different shapes depending on the angle from which they are seen. 

. The reflection of the golden pavilion on the water is also striking.