Kiyomizu-dera

The stage is the thing. A platform of keyaki wood juts thirteen metres out over the hillside, held up by a lattice of 410 pillars joined without a single nail, and it was built that way in 1633 using a technique that was already old then. The current structure came out of a major re-roofing in 2020, the hinoki bark laid again by hand.

There was a superstition that surviving a jump from the stage would grant your wish. The temple's own records list 234 jumps during the Edo period with a survival rate of about 85 per cent, the trees below doing most of the work. The practice was banned in 1872. The phrase for making a leap of faith in Japanese still refers to it.

Below the stage, the Otowa waterfall splits into three streams, for long life, success and love. Drinking from one is the custom. Drinking from all three is considered greedy and people do notice.

The temple was founded in 778 around that spring, long before Kyoto was the capital, and its main hall houses an eleven-headed Kannon shown to the public once every 33 years. Jishu Shrine on the terrace above, dedicated to matchmaking, has been closed for restoration and is not expected back before the mid-2020s.

Entry is around 500 yen and the gates open at six in the morning, earlier than any other major temple in Kyoto. That hour is the whole trick: the approach up Sannenzaka is empty, the light is on the pagoda, and the stage is yours. By ten it is one of the most crowded places in Japan. Special evening openings in spring and autumn light the hillside and sell out.