Travel Snapshot – Sanjūsangendō temple, Kyoto

Sanjūsangendō temple (三十三間堂) is a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, famous for its one thousand life-size Kannon (Guanyin in Japanese,観音), carved from Japanese cypress and covered with gold dust that housed within the wooden building. Measuring 120m long, Sanjūsangendō is the longest wooden temple in Japan and was built in 1164 then renovated after fire damage in 1266.

Some EXIF info: Captured with Nikon D7000 and Nikkor 10-24mm Ultra Wide Angle lens attached. Shot in Program Auto mode, with Shutter speed 1/125 sec and Aperture f5.6. Focus distance was set to 10mm. Auto ISO 100. Auto White Balance. No flash fired and +2/3 Stops of exposure value being compensated with Matrix metering.

Taking photos inside the hall is prohibited so I couldn’t capture the magnificent scene of the 1000 of 40-armed Kannon and the central giant thousand armed Kannon. You can see from the photo above that the surrounding wooden doors are all open, but the openings are all covered with Japanese paper Washi so to allow sunlight to go through as well as blocking people from seeing through. Having said that, Sanjusangendo is still a great tourist site to explore in Higashiyama district of Eastern Kyoto city centre. 🙂 – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.