Kyushu 108 Pilgrimage Temple 93 Shohoji

I began the third day of my walk around Kyushu visiting Nanzoin in Sasaguri, though this was not one of the 108 pilgrimage temples on my route.

After Nanzoin the road dropped down out of the mountains into the Iizuka valley and by lunchtime I reached Shohoji, one of the twenty "extra" temples added on to the main 88. Like all temples on this particular pilgrimage it belonged to the Shingon sect.

The young priest welcomed me and made me a cup of tea, something that would happen quite often on this walk. Its not a very popular pilgrimage even among Japanese, and I was truly made to feel a guest by many temples.

He told me that his father was the priest of a temple not too far from here that I would be visiting in the later stages of the pilgrimage. He also told me his father had walked the whole pilgrimage .

The honzon of the temple was a seated Yakushi Nyorai, and there was a pair of stone nio, in the now prevalent, standard, national, style, a small Fudo, and several Jizo. What there was a lot of was frogs......