Kyoto notebook: February, when nothing blooms
A month in the northern wards, in the emptiest month of the year, and why it turned out to be the loudest.
Hiro Tanaka
Writer & photographer
Cover: Leongsan / Unsplash
February in Kyoto is a month that other months hide behind. No blossoms, no leaves, no festival lanterns. The city is the city, undressed.
The northern wards, again
I’ve lived in Kyoto for eleven years. Every February I re-learn the same thing: this is when the wood of the temples talks. You can hear a beam settle at Ryōan-ji if you stand still for long enough.
Silence in a Japanese temple is not the absence of sound. It’s the presence of the building.
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