Kyoto's long history has ensured that it has seen its fair share of giants. Yet few of these legends have marked the city's physical appearance to the extent of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, despite the man's reputedly smallish stature.
The most obvious of these landmarks was the Odoi, or old protective wall built to ring Kyoto at the end of the 16th century. Nine meters wide in some places, it was built in less than 18 months. Some of the larger portions can still be seen in the city's northwestern corner.
Another obvious landmark is Daitokuji's massive Sanmon (mountain gate). The gate was built long before Hideyoshi came onto the scene, although the man did boost the fortune of the temple itself by burying his predecessor, Oda Nobunaga, there. However, the gate plays a large part in the Hideyoshi legend. Fellow students of tea master Sen no Rikyu had a life-size statue of their teacher installed above the gate. Some of Hideyoshi's military advisers, unhappy at the growing importance that Rikyu was receiving in the eyes of their lord, reminded him that every time he was walking through the gate to take a lesson from his teacher, he was passing beneath Rikyu's feet. An insult that led to the tea master being ordered to commit seppuku not long afterward.