Crossing the Yodo River

 

As day 2 of my walk along the Kinki Fudo Myo pilgrimage winds down it was time to head west after visiting the cluster of temples in central Osaka.

I crossed the Yodo River on the bridge that carries Route 2, a non-descript low, concrete bridge, one of 70 that crosses the Yodo.

At this point the river is about 600 meters wide. It starts 70 kilometers away inLlake Biwa and there it is called the Seta River. When it crosses into Kyoto it becomes the Uji River, and south of Kyoto it is joined by the Katsura and Kizu rivers and changes its name to Yodo.

Before the advent of the railways in the modern period it was the main transportation artery between Osaka and the capital in Kyoto.

Looking back, the high-rise landscape of downtown Osaka dominates.

The previous post in the series was on the Yasaka Shrine on the East bank.

Umeda Architecture Snapshots

 

The high-rise buildings of Umeda in downtown Osaka may be quite familiar to many visitors, but because I live deep in the countryside and rarely visit cities the sights are quite unfamiliar Japan to me and very fascinating.

The cluster of seven temples that comprise the start of the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage are all located in central Osaka and after visiting the 7th, Settsu Kokubunji, in the afternoon of my second day walking, it was now time to head West towards Kobe where temple 8 lay.

I had a hotel room booked for the night in Nishinomiya so I had no time to explore or engage in any kind of photographic study of the architecture, just snapshots as I passed by.

This is the Umekita Ship Hall, a commercial property on the northside of JR Osaka Station. It was designed by Nikken Sekkei

The unique Umeda Sky Building, designed by Hiroshi Hara, seen from a distance.

A replica of a medieval Belgian church on the 8th floor of the Hotel Monterey Osaka.

The previous post in this series on the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage was Settsu Kokubunji Temple.

Settsu Kokubunji Temple 7 Kinki Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage

 This text is from an earlier post that was of photos of Taiyuji Temple, number 6 on the pilgrimage that I mistakingly thought was number 7 Kokubunji. I have now edited that post and added relevant information about Taiyuji. Sorry.

Kokubinji is an urban temple in downtown Osaka that is the 7th temple on the Kinki Fudo pilgrimage. It is also on the Saigoku Yakushi, Settsu 88, and Osaka Jizo pilgrimages. Settsu is the old provincial name for what is now Osaka.

The temple's origins lie in the 7th century when a temple was established on the site of a former palace to pray for the peaceful repose of the former emperor Kotoku. It was called Nagara-ji.

In 741 a nationwide system of temple-monasteries called Kokubunji was established, one for each province. Nagara-ji was chosen to be the Kokubunji for Settsu.

In 1615 the temple completely burned down during the Siege of Osaka and was not rebuilt for a hundred years.

It was completely rebuilt again at the end of the Meiji period, and in June 1945 was once again destroyed, this time in an air raid, so all the structures have been built since then, except for the entrance gate which dates to the Edo Period.

The honzon is a Yakushi, but there are numerous other shrines and altars to a variety of deities and buddhas, including several Fudo Myo. Not surprisingly considering the various pilgrimages it is on, the temple attracts a lot of visitors and is surprisingly quiet for an urban temple.

The large Fudo statue with large eyes is Minori Fudo. The smaller Fudo ( photo 4) is a Mizukake Fudo. Photo 5 is a Kobo Daishi statue.

The Bell Tower is a memorial to the Tenroku Gas Explosion when the nearby subway line was being constructed in 1970 and a gas explosion killed 79 and injured 420.

The previous post in this series on my second day walking the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage was Kantele Ogimachi Square.

Kantele Ogimachi Square Osaka

 

Originally called Ogimachi Kids Park, this modern building adjacent to Ogimachi Park in Kita Ward, Osaka, is quite distinctive.

Kantele is the nickname of Kansai Telecasting, a local TV station and broadcaster with sudios and offices in the building.

It is also called Kids Plaza after a large childrens science museum inside.

It opened in 1997 and was designed by Yasui Architects & Engineers Inc, not a household name, but designers of hundreds of major buildings in Japan and elsewhere.

I passed by while on my second day of walking the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage.

The previous post in the series is on the nearby Settsu Kokubunji Temple

Taiyuji Temple 6 Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage

 

Taiyuji Temple, number 6 on the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage, is a large complex in downtown Umeda close to Osaka Station.

It is said to have been founded in 821 by Kobo Daishi himself with Emperor Saga donating a statue of Senju Kannon which is now the honzon. The temple was burned to the ground during the Siege of Osaka in 1615 and then once again at the end of WWII. Most of the current buildings date to 1986.

There are numerous statues and shrines scattered throughout the grounds. It is said that in the Meiji period, the  Freedom & Political Rights Movement was established here before spreading around the country.

The Okunoin of the temple is a small cave enshrining a Fudo Myo statue.

The much larger Fudo housed in the Ichigando is the focus of the Fudo Pilgrimage

A statue of young Kobo Daishi. The Kuzan Hakkai Garden is a rock and gravel garden with unusual stepping stones covering 200 tsubo.

I was visiting on the second day of my walk along the Kinki Fudo Myo pilgrimage. The previous post in this series is the nearby Osaka Tenmangu Shrine.

Houonin Temple 5 Kinki Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage

Houonin Temple

Houoninji was founded in the late 17th century with tee erection of the Kitamukizanfudoson, the North-Facing Fudo.

Located in central Osaka, not far from Ikutama Shrine, it is temple number 5 on the Kinki Fudo Myoo pilgrimage and I visited on the second day of my walk along that pilgrimage.

The statue stands against a camphor tree that was planted at the same time, and when the temple buildings were burned to the ground in WWII, only the tree and statue survived.

On the other side of the tree is now a "south-facing Fudo", though I can nt discover when this dates from.

It is a very compact, urban temple with only a few small buildings, but in one was another Fudo statue.

 

There was also this statue of who I am fairly certain is En no Gyoja, the legendary founder of Shugendo

Ema

Green Tea

Shinsekai

新世界

Shinsekai is the entertainment district around the Tsutenkaku Tower in the south of Osaka City,

On the right of the photo above you can see one of the icons of Shinsekai, a character called Billiken, a good-luck figure whose history dates back to when he was enshrined in the area back in 1912. He is the creation of American artist Florence Pretz.

It is claimed that the northern part of Shinsekai is modelled on Paris and the southern part on Coney Island in New York

The area was once considered quite seedy but recently has been a little gentrified by the development of nearby Abeno Harukas and the homless residents are less in evidence, though not invisible.

I was here because there are plenty of very cheap hotels in the area that seem particularly popular with Asian tourists on a budget. There are plenty of retro pachinko parlors and arcades, and the local specialty is Kushikatsu, deep-fried skewers of battered meats and vegetables.

I visited at the end of my first day walking the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage which I started at Shitennoji Temple, one of the oldest temples in all of Japan with a little-known garden, I had visited a further three temples of the pilgrimage, number 2, Kiyomizudera, a small but very old temple, number 3, Horakuji Temple which was quite a surprise with its massive tree and with plenty of art, and temple 4, Kyozenji Temple.

There had been other sights other than the pilgrimage temples.  An annex of Isshinji Temple was very surprising, as was Aizendo Shomanin Temple. The most interesting shrine of the day was Yasui Shrine enshrining the samurai Sanada Yukimura.

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