Uji Highlights
You have almost certainly seen it already — on the 10-yen coin, in travel magazines, in the opening credits of documentaries about Japan. The Phoenix Hall of Byodoin Temple is one of the most reproduced images in Japanese history.
What no reproduction prepares you for is the reflection. The hall was built in 1053 on the edge of a garden pond, positioned so that it appears to float above its own mirror image in the water. The architect's intention was to evoke the Western Paradise of Amida Buddha — a realm of perfect symmetry, weightless and luminous.
Byodoin began as the Uji villa of Minamoto no Toru, a 9th-century nobleman. It passed eventually to Fujiwara no Michinaga — the most powerful man in Heian Japan, widely believed to be a model for the character of Hikaru Genji — and then to his son Yorimichi, who converted it into a Buddhist temple in 1052.
The Phoenix Hall (鳳凰堂): The central hall, with its two wing corridors extending symmetrically over the pond, is the image everyone comes to see. Two bronze phoenixes (hōō) perch on the roof ridge.
Byodoin Museum Hoshokan: The underground museum houses the original bronze phoenixes from the roof, original temple bells, and fragments of the original painted walls. Local note: Many visitors skip the museum. Don't.