#194【English】Morning Talk Heirinji

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Good morning everyone, it’s December 2nd, and it’s time again for Amber’s morning English talk.

It’s about 7 degrees Celsius and it looks like there is a high of 9 degrees starting just before noon today. This morning is very cloudy, and there is a chance of rain from noon that will last until about midnight.

This last weekend Hiro and I went to a temple located right outside of Tokyo in a city known as Niiza, which is located in Saitama prefecture. The name of this temple is Heirinji, and it is actually an active Buddhist temple with its main grounds being off-limits to tourists. However, Heirinji temple is a fairly well-known spot to view autumn foliage, and many tourists flock here in the fall once the leaves begin to change color.

While the main temple grounds are hidden from normal visitors, the outer grounds have a lovely walking path through the precinct’s forest. While most of the forest has this sort of pathway, there are also open forested areas to enjoy as well. The temple grounds that are accessible to tourists and regular people that may just be visiting are also well-maintained and make for a relaxing atmosphere. I think my favorite place in Heirinji has to be the small shrine dedicated to Benzaiten which is located on a narrow island surrounded by a small pond teaming with bright orange koi fish. I really enjoyed watching them swim and gather around visitors that would peer over the fence surrounding the pond.

I have a few photos that I took that I will be posting to my Instagram and possibly Twitter in the near future, hopefully today, so if you’d like to check them out, please have a look as I will be leaving the links to those in today’s morning talk description.

And to wrap up this morning’s talk, I’d like to ask a question to those that are listening now:
Now that it is December, were you able to visit any good Kouyou or Autumn Foliage spots?

It looks like much of the Kanto area is still changing colors, so you may still have time to visit some parks or mountains to get a nice view of the leaves and scenery.