Kennin-ji

Kyoto's oldest Zen temple, founded in 1202 by the monk Eisai, who had just come back from a second stay in China with two things: the Rinzai school of Zen, and tea seeds. He planted them, wrote the first Japanese treatise on drinking tea, and is the reason the whole country now does. There is a tea garden in the grounds and a tea ceremony held here every April in his honour.

The building to walk into is the Hatto, the dharma hall, where a pair of dragons covers the ceiling. Koizumi Junsaku painted them in 2002 for the temple's 800th anniversary, across 108 tatami mats of paper laid out in a school gymnasium because nothing else was big enough. You lie back on the floor to look, and photography is allowed, which in Kyoto is unusual enough to be worth stating.

In the main hall is the Wind God and Thunder God screen by Tawaraya Sotatsu, one of the best-known images in Japanese art. The original is in the Kyoto National Museum for safekeeping and what hangs here is an exact reproduction, which the temple is straightforward about.

The gardens are the other reason to stay. Daioen is raked gravel and moss viewed from a long veranda where you can sit for as long as you like, and a small courtyard garden arranges a circle, a triangle and a square in moss and stone.

Entry is around 600 yen. Hanamikoji ends at the gate, so this is a two-minute walk from the busiest street in Gion, and the difference in noise is the point. Most people photographing the teahouses never come in.