Close to the much more famous (and therefore crowded) Jisso-in (実相院) lies a secret hermitage. Almost literally secret, it was the residence of Iwakura Tomomi, a famous actor and proponent of the Meiji Restoration. Fearing that his ideas would cost him his life, he resigned from his official duties at the imperial court and moved to this hermitage. Here were held many secret meetings and conferences with other patriots that were trying to merge the shogunate system and the imperial rule.
The site is a bit hidden in the side streets near Jisso-in, so it really takes luck or careful planning to find it. You're also unlikely to find it in English guidebooks. In fact, there's only about 6000 hits in Google for the... Japanese name! So what is there to be found in this hermitage? Well, to be honest, not much ;-) There's only two buildings: one Japanese-styled and thatched roof residence, located a little above the second one, a brick and mortar and more recent construction that served as library and is now a small museum. The first one is the most interesting, with its nice tatami rooms and numerous paper partitions (shoji). However, there is no nicely tented zen garden, like you may find in other hermitages such as Shisen-do. Iwakura-san had a lot of other more important concerns! Recommended for: Nearby: Jissō-in 実相院 (150m), Iwakura-jinja 石座神社 (220m) External links: ウィキペディア, Kyoto Navi, 京都風光, Marutake, Satellite view, Map Keywords: Japan, 日本, Japon, Kyoto, 京都, 南左京, Sakyo-ku, 岩倉具視幽棲旧宅, Iwakura Hermitage Statistics: visited on 4 occasions, id 435, 10 photos (8 extra photos can be found in the archive). |
