Kokedera, the Moss Temple

On Saturday, Taube, Julian and I had reservations to visit Kokedera (a.k.a. Saiho-ji, Koinzan, and the moss temple). We made our reservations by postcard a couple of months ago, as the guidebooks all say this temple and its garden are a must-see. We were told to come at 1 pm and that we would be required to spend some time copying sutras, in Japanese of course. No problem. We imagined it would be the three of us and a patient monk who would probably be trying hard not to laugh at our child-like attempts to write kanji. So we were very surprised to arrive at the temple along with a tour bus full of Japanese people!
We giggled our way through copying sutras, hoping we’d be able to keep them, until we were told to be quiet and to turn in our sutras along with a prayer or wish and our address. I don’t know why they needed our address, maybe so Buddha can find us to grant our wishes? After the sutra writing, everyone else in the temple (i.e. all the Japanese tourists) joined the priests in chanting what we had just written.
Then we were free to wander around the temple garden which was the real intent of our visit. The garden was beautiful with 120 varieties of moss and a pond in the middle of the garden in the shape of the character for heart, not that we recognized it. I took a lot of photos so here are just a few, and the rest are on a web album here.

dragon fly on lotus plant