Yes, we're back from Tokyo and back to work. And yes, this is STILL from back in September at that same temple I've been covering. It's one of my favorite things I've seen here, so I think it's worth showing the entire thing to you. So we walked back through the long narrow cave and found an entrance on the other side to an even narrower long cave that was ever darker. I was scared to go in it. One reason I have so many pictures is because I was constantly using the flash to see where I was going. Above is one of the paintings on the wall that you couldn't see without using the flash. It was really eerie in the dark and the small flickers of light in the cave make the images seem ghostly. They used mirrors to heighten these effects (you can see below how a mirror is used).
Markian walked ahead of me because I was creeped out. Mostly I was afraid of spiders since I had seen SO many huge ones in the well lit areas. 
Small figures lined the sides of the cave. The passage seemed to just keep going. Mostly because we were walking so slow because we couldn't see where we were going, and also because we were in awe on the ghostly wall paintings.
Above: I nervously pose for a picture. Below: the innermost shrine
As you can see it's the same carvings that were seen in the other building after we exited the first cave. Below is the shrine itself. It was so dark it took about 10 shots to get a halfway decent one. 
Finally the exit! I keep sneezing like I always do when I come out of a dark movie theater. Ishite-Ji is an awesome temple. I hope to come back here someday.
No comments:
Post a Comment