Hamada River mouth to Shimoko River mouth

 

The Hamada River curves around the hill topped by the ruins of Hamada Castle before entering a narrow inlet with a narrow opening into the Sea of Japan.

The village at the base of the castle facing the sea is Matsubara, and it is well protected by lines and lines of tetrapods...

I guess it needs protecting from high tide surges, but located in a narrow inlet must mean its a bit of an overkill...

The shrine here is an Itsukushima Shrine, which I covered in the previous post in this series...

Below is the opening into the sea...

The inlet heading in the opposite direction is Tonoura, and it was historically a major safe haven for Kitamaebune ships...

I think this is the first seaplane I have seen in Japan...

The Kotohira Shrine located here I also covered in the previous post....

There are only a few houses now, but previously there would have been numerous lodgings for sailors, and also merchant houses that engaged in the lucrative trade....

From the end of the inlet a narrow road heads up over the high ground seperating the Hamada River drainage from the Shimoko River drainage.

It is surprisingly remote, considering downtown Hamada id so close...

There are some nice views of the rocky coastline....

There are several small settlements, but one tiny fishing village stands out....

From here I drop down to the mouth of the Shimoko River..... the next pilgrimage temple is nearby, but I will visit at the start of the next day....

The previous post was on the two shrines in this area....

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Daikoji Temple 67 Shikoku Ohenro Pilgrimage

 

Daikoji, temple 67 on the Shikoku Pilgrimage, is located in a fairly out-of-the-way rural area at the bottom of the mountains, with no big towns nearby.

It was established, about 1 kilometer from its current location, in 742 as a branch of Todaiji temple.

The Nio Gate was built in 1318 but rebuit at its current location in 1796.

The Nio are dated to the mid Kamakura Period, around the mid 13th century.

They were repainted in 1790 and are the biggest wooden nio in Shikoku.

Kobo Daishi visited in 792, and thirty years later came back and rebuilt much of the temple.

Two huge trees flanking the approach are said to have been planted by Kobo Daishi himself.

Daikoji was unusual in that it was partly Tendai and partly Shingon, with a Tendai hall still remaining today.

At one point there were 24 Shingon halls and 12 Tendai halls....

A major fire detroyed most of the temple, possibly caused by Chosokabe Motochika, possibly not.

When I visited in 2012 they were already flying banners to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of the Pilgrimage in 2014...

The temple moved to its current location and was rebuilt in 1597. The current main hall dates to 1741.

The honzon is a Yakushi Nyorai, commonly known as the Medicine Buddha. It is a secret Buddha unveiled to the public every 60 years.

Known as Sanko (triangle) Pine...

Kumano Sansho Gongen Shrine was seperated from the temple after shinbutsu bunri...

The previous post was on Unpenji, temple 66....

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Matsubara Itsukushima Shrine & Tonoura Kotohira Shrine

 

Matsubara is the small settlement below Hamada Castle on the mouth of the Hamada River.

The shrine right below the castle and immediately next to the sea is, not surprisingly, an Itsukushima Shrine...

There is a secondary Ebisu shrine in the grounds and hanging inside the common pairing of two masks of Ebisu and Daikoku. 2 of the 7 lucky gods, the pairing has deeper significance in this region as Daikoku is read as Okuninushi, and the father-son pair of Okuninushi and Ebisu are important in Izumo mythology.

The Itsukushima shrine is a branch of the famous one on Miyajima. This one only enshrined Ichikishima and not her sisters...

The chikaraishi stones were used in displays of strength at festivals...

The shrine has some very nice, large paintings.....

A few hundred meters up the narrow inlet towards Tonoura, the Kitamaebune port in earlier times, is a Kotohira Shrine set among a rocky outcropping.

This was originally a small Buddhist hermitage in 1711, but a few years later, following a dream, Kotohira Gongen was invited from Shikoku. In 1868, with the separation of Buddhas and Kami, it was turned into a shrine.

The previous post was on the Otoshi Shrine near Hamada Port

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Namba Yasaka Shrine to Nakanoshima..... Zen, Love, & Business...

 

Continuing with my little architectural exploration of Namba and nearby areas of central Osaka, from the Yasaka Shrine I headed towards Nakanoshima, about 4 kilometers away...

First sight was Zuiryuji Temple, commonly known as Tetsugenji after Testsugen, the Obaku Zen monk who founded the temple. Knwn for printing the complete Buddhist sutras in Japanese, Tetsugen made the temple huge during the Edo Period.

Totally destroyed during WWII bombing, the main hall was rebuilt in wood, but has since been rebuilt in concrete....

I passed by the octagonal Namba Hatch I had visited a little earlier...

Other than that there were no noteworthy structures.....

Although I did pass numerous urban Love Hotels which offer splashes of colour and whimsy among the glass and steel towers....... I am at a loss to understand Mickey Cookies as a love hotel theme..

Other than a few cities in the US with big rivers to cross, I don't remember seeing the kind of elevated urban roads that seem to be common in metropolitan Japan..... very Bladerunner to me....

I have only ever stayed at a couple of rural love hotels before, so I have no idea what the interiors are like.... but I can guess....

The final photo of the post is Nakaonoshima, my destination,  home to a couple of museums I wanted to visit...

The previous post in this series on the architectural delights of Osaka was on the Namba Yasaka Shrine..

if you would like to subscribe by email just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published and made public. I post new content almost everyday, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts.