Mausoleum of light

This is a cemetery?

Well if it is then congrats on coming up with an original concept (Japan strikes again). Kōkoku-Ji Temple is a tiny place nestled up in a small forested corner, just like most of the other religious sites in Tokyo I guess.

I arrived looking for this specific room but couldn't find it at first. It was raining and there was a ceremony going on in the main temple hall. One of the staff saw me visibly confused and asked if I was looking for this spot (I assume he gets that a lot). He took me near the entrance of the grounds and opened a small columbarium and unlocked it to allow me in.

Inside was indeed the prize I was looking for. Hundreds of light up buddhas in a unique display. It's still shocking to me how they fit something like this into such a tiny crammed space. There were lights everywhere, even on the manhole in the middle of the room. Again, shoutout and thanks to the guard who clearly has a lot of experience with this kind of thing.

I hardly edited this photo at all. The edges of the original shot were angled and out of focus which actually allowed for a great subject shot. The only thing I changed was the lighting on the central buddha (he was hardly lit up at all) and I constantly reframe the shot cause it wasn't symmetrical enough.

I knew there was somethin' special about this shot, which is why I specifically saved it for my 50th post. I'm sure in time that milestone will seem meaningless but after being absent from Flickr for over a decade prior to this channel, I feel it was only appropriate to commemorate it with a better shot.

Done