The most impressive thing I saw at Kongubuji is justly famous: these snowscene-covered fusuma sliding doors were absolutely breathtaking and looked like they could have been painted minutes ago rather than a hundred years ago. Better still, they didn't mind me taking a photo of it as long as I didn't use a flash. (The main museum in Koya doesn't allow you to take photos under any circumstances, so be forewarned). Other fusuma here show impressive scenes from other seasons, but this one was the most dramatic.

People complain that my photos have too few people in them. That's because I don't normally have a model this charming: a pretty college girl who was visiting from Tokyo on her last student-days trip before preparing to enter the work force. She was so impressed by this temple, and by a conversation she had with the head monk, that she actually made another trip back here a couple of years later.