More glimpses of unfamiliar Japan

  Just after crossing from Takeo into Ureshino I reached the place I had made a 15 kilometers detour to see, the Ureshino Hihokan. With a la...

Statues along the Hita Kaido One of the subjects I focus on finding as I walk the roads and lanes of Japan is sculptures. On my walk along t...

  Located on the bank of the Kuma River, Shibatatehime shrine, as the suffix "hime" suggests, enshrined a maiden. As the sculpted ...

I dropped down into the Ebino Valley with its great views of the Kirishima Mountains and headed to Kiyomachi Onsen where I had a room fo...

One of the things I am on the lookout for while I wander the back roads of rural Japan are fertility shrines. Many of them, like this on...

This is the third and final post on Mara Kannon. The first post showed the thousands of small, votive phalli left at the shrine. The ...

Last week I posted photos of the ceramic votive phalli at Mara Kannon Shrine in Yamaguchi. Here are some of the other more individuala...

There are literally thousands of ceramic votive phalli at Mara Kannon Shrine in Tawarayama, a small onsen town in the mountains of nor...

There is a collection of phallic stones at the Asuka Nimasu Shrine that I would guess have been collected from the surrounding area. A few o...