Kiyomizudera: International Hangout

On a recent visit to Kyoto, we visited Kiyomizudera. Too late to enter and get to the famous main temple building, we settled for the West Gate. What a surprise and pleasure: Many of the visitors that day (in late December) were not Japanese, and they were LOVING IT! It made me proud and excited to see how excited they were about visiting Japan. I don't know how many different languages I heard, but I felt I was in the United Nation's Japan branch. The sunset that day was lovely, and as dusk settled down over the temple it was pure magic.