Otsu · JP

Mangetsu Temple Uki-mido

At the narrowest point of Lake Biwa, in the old lakeside town of Katata in Otsu, a small wooden Buddhist hall sits out on the water, reached by a low bridge running some 17 metres from the shore. This is the Uki-dō — the "floating hall" of Mangetsu-ji — and it is one of Japan's most recognisable waterside images: a tile-roofed hall above the ripples, an old pine leaning over it, and the open lake behind. According to temple tradition the hall was founded around 995–999 by the monk Genshin, who is said to have netted a small golden Amida Buddha glowing on the surface of the lake and then built a hall of a thousand Amida images out on the water, to pray for safe crossings and for the salvation of living things. Destroyed by the great Muroto typhoon of 1934, it was rebuilt in 1937 and keeps the quiet, weathered mood of the earlier scene. The view it belongs to, "Geese Descending at Katata," is one of the classic Eight Views of Ōmi, made iconic in prints by Hiroshige and Hokusai and celebrated in a haiku by Matsuo Bashō whose verse is still cut into a stone here. It is a short, gentle stop: you pay a modest admission, walk out along the bridge, and look at the lake framed almost exactly as the ukiyo-e artists framed it.