Word: zenkoji
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Olympic village," she declared firmly. "But I've got to focus on my own thing right now and do what's good for me." Conventional wisdom says that Kwan should have played it differently, a little looser perhaps. But she had lighter moments, visiting a Zenkoji temple and watching Harrison Ford kick butt in Air Force One hours before doing likewise in her short program...
Throughout its history, Nagano has been renowned as a temple town, home to one of Japan's most ecumenical Buddhist centers, Zenkoji, a 40-structure complex set against the mountains. The cypress-roofed temple is the city's center of gravity, marked on all the highway signs. Zenkoji announces itself with the shock of pounding drums, the smell of burning incense, the flutter of white-paper prayers. Somewhere inside its main hall is what is said to be the first Buddha image ever to arrive in Japan, so precious that only a replica is displayed once every seven years...
...traditional magnet for Buddhist pilgrims, Zenkoji is approached past a long line of shops selling religious artifacts (though, this being Japan, they also offer pink bunnies and nudie telephone cards). Sidewalks brim with tables full of dried apricots and pumpkin seeds and sachets of apple tea. For all its modern accessories, Nagano remains a farmers' town sought out for its pickles, its horseradishes and its homemade buckwheat noodles. Next to the feminine grace notes of a Kyoto, say, the northern city feels a decidedly masculine place. Its colors are brown and black, its aesthetic one of straw and stone...
...Japan's holiest sites, Zenkoji (Bright Light) Temple was built 1,350 years ago and is such an integral part of the region that CBS asked to set up its temporary studio there. The Buddhist priests have granted permission...