Sanjūsangendō Temple

This guide to Sanjusangendo Temple in Kyoto opens on a night in 1686, with eighteen-year-old archer Wasa Daihachiro kneeling at one end of Japan's longest wooden hall, facing a target the length of a hundred-and-twenty-meter room lined with one thousand and one statues of Kannon. It follows the toshiya archery contest that ran here for over two centuries, and reaches back further to the fire of 1249 that destroyed most of the original hall built by Taira no Kiyomori. Look up at the old wooden beams overhead, where centuries-old notches still mark where arrows struck.