"Daimonji" literally means "great/large letter," and "yama" means "mountain." It is a mountain that has a clearing a ways up with a large letter carved into it. On Oban, a holiday in August, large bonfires are lit along the lines of the letter, making it glow in the night. It sounds pretty neat... it's too bad we couldn't see it lit up. I think "Daimonji-yama" is a bit of a pun, too. "Dai" means "great" or "large," but "dai" is also the character that is drawn into the mountain (look at the mountain in the last picture, and the first Japanese character in the title of this page). It'd be like if Americans called something "Great Word Mountain" and then wrote the word "great" on the side of the mountain.
The climb up the mountain took about 30 min, but the top offered a good view of the city. During our trip we had incredible weather--only one day was cloudy and hazy (that's unreal for Japan). Unfortunately, this was also the day that we climbed Daimonji-yama. Behind Peter you can see a sea of grey buildings punctuated by large green expanses. The green expanses are the various temples and castle grounds.
Kim looks happy. Maybe it's because she just successfully finished her favorite activity--hauling Peter's whiney butt up mountains.
This is the clearing on the mountain that contains the letter. It's really difficult to see much of anything, but there is a lot of concrete! Surprise! (not)
Later on, when we went to visit the Imperial Palace (Kyouto Gosho) the next day, we got a good view of the daimonji in the side of the yama. We're not sure if this is the one that we climbed... there are a few more of them around the city.