Kyushu Pilgrimage Day 11 Beppu to Oita

This is somewhat how I felt on the morning of my eleventh day of walking around Kyushu. After 2 days of miserable, grey, drizzly weather, the sky was clear and blue. The statue is of Kumahachi Aburaya, the entrepeneur who put Beppu on the tourist map and was to a large extent responsible for modern Japanese tourism....

Heading south out of Beppu I took lots of shots of the colorful manhole covers of the town before stopping in at the big Hachiman Shrine with its pair of giant cedars.

After heading down the coast I cut inland to get to Yusuhara Hachimangu, the major shrine of the area and home to a set of fantatsic carvings adorning the main gate,... from there downhill all the way into the outskirts of Oita City.

At Funai castle ruins I caught this married couple having their wedding photos taken among the cherry blossoms. Nearby was an older building designed by Oita native Arata Isozaki that now contains a small museum of his models and drawing which was a real delight.

I then headed to the hills to te south of the city center where there were some older temples, shrines, & Buddhist carvings.....

Kyushu Pilgrimage Temple 25 Kongochoji

This was a very difficult place to find. Located in the middle of a dense grid of narrow streets, none of which were named. It didnt help that it was tiny and not really any different from its neighboring houses.

The giant lantern in the yard was the clue that finally helped. There was no-one home and no signboard.

Apparently it is also on the Beppu Saigoku 33 Kannon pilgrimage. Like Beppu itself it was very unmemorable.

More Beppu Flowers

Beppu in Oita styles itself "flower town" and is reflected in its choice of designs for manhole covers. A previous post can be found here. This post shows a few more. This first one is of tsutsuji, azaleas.

This may very well be another azalea design or possibly hibiscus.

This ones easy.... cherry blossoms and tulips.... but I couldn't find it in color.

Not sure what this one is....

The Delightful Floral Manholes of Beppu

Some places really make an effort with their manhole designs. Yuda Onsen in Yamaguchi with more than 30 different designs being an obvious choice (click here for some examples). Another place I recently discovered is Beppu, the famous hot-spring resort in Oita.
The first one features Cosmos (kosumosu) and Rose Mallow (Fuyou)

Crape Myrtle (sarusuberi) and Sunflower (himawari)

Plum (ume) and Daffodil (suisen)

Wintersweet (loubai) and Pot Marigold (kinsenka)

Bush Clover (hagi) and Canna Lily (kanna)

Peach (momo) and Pansy (panji)

Hydrangea (ajisai) and Daisy (maagaretto)

Another post later as this is not all the ones I found in Beppu.

Hachiman Asami Shrine

The Hachiman Shrine in the Asami district in the south of Beppu City is the tutelary shrine of the town, and was founded in the 12th Century.

The entrance is flanked by two ancient cedars and the local tradition says that if a couple walk together between the trees they will be married.

Hachiman shrines, in Kyushu at least, tend to have retained more of their earlier decoration and are often painted a a dark red, rather than the vermillion associated with imperial or Inari shrines.

Since the Heian Period the kami nof Hachiman shrines have been equated with the legendary Emperor Ojin, and the kami are usually listed as Ojin, his mother Jingu, and father Chuai. Sometimes Ojins wife is listed too.

Now called the God of War, Hachiman has had a multitude of varying identities. The best resource in English on Hachiman is the American researcher Ross Bender, and many of his papers can be found here

The shrine has various interesting things within its grounds, some unusual-shaped stones in the walkway, a pure water spring, a treasure house

This huge camphor tree is said to be over 1,000 years old.

There are several sub-shrines in the grounds, but have been unable to find out exactly which kami they enshrine.