Horyuji, home to the world's oldest surviving wooden structures (Photo-essay)

All too soon, it was time for me to leave Shikoku (and its environs, notably Shodoshima).  Happily though, I still had a few more days left to Japan -- and after boarding the train that took me away from the smallest and least populous of Japan's four main islands, and across the Seto-ohashi Bridge (which I had viewed from atop Washu-zan around the same time last year) to Honshu, I went on the shinkansen and a couple of other trains to the first site in Japan to be inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list.

Prior to my visiting Horyuji, I knew that this Buddhist temple founded in 607 by Empress Suiko (one of just eight women to have ruled over Japan) and her nephew, Prince Shotoku, is home to the world's oldest surviving wooden buildings.  But I didn't full grasp how large the temple complex is until I got there -- and perhaps because it's so vast, that's why much of it felt so deserted and quiet, especially relative to the major temples and shrines of Kyoto (particularly Kiyomizudera)!  

If I had had a better idea of Horyuji's size, I would have allocated more time for my visit.  As it was, I did rush about more than I would have liked.  Even then, I ended up leaving this impressive temple complex so late that I missed the last bus back to the town's train station and, instead, shared a taxi there with a gentleman visiting from Kyoto who also had been spent some time that afternoon under Horyuji's spell... ;)

The view from the Nandaimon, Horyuji's southern main gate

which replaced an earlier structure in 1438

The Chumon (Central Gate) is around eight centuries older,

and on each side of its doorway stand large, fearsome-looking

guardian deities made of clay that date back to the 8th century

Horyuji's oldest structure is its 5-storey pagoda, 

built during the Asuka period (538-710) to house 

relics in the form of bone fragments of the Buddha

The nearby, similarly ancient Kondo (Main Hall) has

carvings of such as dragons adorning its outer columns

as well as treasured statues and wall paintings inside of it

A few hundred meters away, over in Horyuji's Toin Garan 

(Eastern Precinct), can be found still other designated 

National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties 

The Eastern Precinct's centerpiece, the 8-century-old 

octagonal-shaped Yumedono (Hall of Visions), is said to 

have a particularly mystical atmosphere!

Eden can be found here too -- though, alas, just the

Eden that's the temple complex's Hall of Paintings

rather than the biblical garden of God! ;b 

Puppet Ponyo poses near the Toin Soro (Bell House of the

Eastern Precinct), within which hangs an over 1,000-year-old bell!