Great Blue Herons

I am neither a twitcher nor an ornithologist, so some of these may be Grey Herons rather than Great Blues. Though, like all wild animals, they are naturally skittish around people, many live in urban settings and will allow you to get closer to take photos.... this one was in downtown Kurashiki.

With their long, spindly legs they are well adapted to wade in the shallow waters of ponds and rivers to find their staple... fish. This one is in the pond at the Tenmangu Shrine in Nagaoka.

Known as sagi in Japanese, they feature in many poems and paintings.

Graceful in flight, their wingspan can get close to 2 meters..

This one was in a drainage ditch in Tsuwano, literally a few meters away from where the Heron dance was being performed.

Kushibuchi Hachiman Shrine & Kita Sadakichi

The entrance to the Hachiman Shrine in Kushibuchi, part of Komatsushima City in Tokushima, is flanked by a pair of huge, venerable old trees, probably Camphor.

At the base of one of the trees was a bust of Kita Sadakichi, a famous historian and educator from the Meiji Period who was born nearby in 1871. From a peasant farming family, while in school he suffered bullying and discrimination from his samurai-class schoolmates and this probably led to his being a tireless opponent of discrimination, especially against burakumin.

Like most historians of his time he saw the Japanese as a hybrid people composed of many peoples and races and that in ancient times discrimination did not exist in Japan. He saw the beginning of discrimination when the knowledge of  the Japanese's roots in the Korean peninsular was actively suppressed, a point alluded to in the ninth century Kogoshui. Unfortunately his solution to discrimination was assimilation and his ideas formed the basis for the educational policies of the colonial governments in Korea. The best source in English I have found on his ideas can be found in " A Genealogy of 'Japanese' Self-images" by Eiji Oguma, my short review of which can be found here.

Being a Hachiman shrine, the main kami enshrined here is of course Ojin. usually Hachiman is equated with Ojin, his mother Jingu, and a third kami, either his father Chuai or his consort Himegami. Unfortunately there was no signboard so I have no idea which kami are enshrined in the various small shrines in the grounds except...

a Katsuragi Shrine, in all probability a branch of the shrine on top of Mount Kongo in Osaka and founded by En no Goya the legendary founder of Shugendo.

Kyushu 108 Sacred Sites Pilgrimage Temple 1 Tochoji

At dawn on Christmas Day, 2012,  I set out on my latest long distance walk, a 2,000 kikometer walk around Kyushu. The Kyushu 88 temple & 108 sacred sites pilgrimage is a modern pilgrimage set up for bus and car pilgrims (hereafter referred to as the Kyushu108). All the sites are Shingon and it begins with the first temple in Hakata, Fukuoka.

Originally built on the shore it was relocated to its present location following a fire by the daimyo of the area Kuroda Tadayuki who designated it as the Kuroda family temple.

It is claimed that Kukai founded the temple in 806 on his return from China but I have also read that it was founded by a disciple of Kukai. Next to the main hall is a hexagonal building that opens on the 28th of each month to display the statues and artworks inside.

The vermillion pagoda in the grounds is very new,... it was still under construction a few years ago when I first visited.

To the right of the main hall is another new building. It houses the largest wooden seated Buddha statues in Japan. It was too early for me to pay the entrance fee to view it, but as photography was not permitted I am loath to pay anyway. The statue is 10.8 meters tall and was completed in 1996. 108 is a meaningful number in Japanese buddhism as it is the number of delusions of the mind, hence many pilgrimages will have 108 sites and why a temple bell is rung 108 times on new Years Eve.

The Walls of Hagi Jokamachi

The urbanization of Japan can be said to have begun in the Tokugawa period. An edict of 1615 restricted the daimyo to just one castle in their territory and another law forced all the samurai to live within the towns that grew up around these castles. This is the origin of the Jokomachi.

One of the best preserved jokamachi is in Hagi, Yamaguchi Prefecture, seat of the Mori domain. Spared destruction by the development that followed the construction of railways and stations, the rail line skirted Hagi and so the grid of streets making up the old town still remain.

The very highest ranked samurai lived within the castle grounds behind the outer walls, but the next highest ranked lived right next to the castle. As the rank descended the samurai lived further and further away from the castle.

While the poorest samurai lived in quite crude accomodations, the higher ranked samurai lived in mansions surrounded by high walls.

many of these walls were plastered and painted, but some were left plain. The ones built using old roof tiles are particularly striking.

Yabakei Gorge & Aonodomon

Honyabakei is a small town south of Nakatsu in Oita Prefecture. in 2005 the town was merged with Nakatsu.

The draincover depicts Yabakei Gorge and Aonodomon.

The gorge was created by the Yamakuni River cutting through the biggest volcanic plateau in Japan.

The result is some spectacular rock formations and sheer cliffs that are particularly popular in the Fall season.

Aonodomon, which means "blue tunnel" is an almost 200 meter long tunnel carved into the base of the cliffs. According to legend it was carved by a single monk named Zenkai using a hammer and chisel and took him 30 years to complete.

Earlier in his life Zenkai had committed a murder and to atone for his sins her carved the tunnel to make the rout to a local shrine safer for pilgrims.

Ehime Science Museum

The Ehime Prefectural Science Museum is situated on the hillside overlooking Niihama and the Inland sea.

It opened in 1994 and was designed by Kisho Kurokawa, an internationally-renowned Japanese architect who I am not very familiar with, but I have seen his Mojiko Retro Tower.

The complex of buildings uses geometric shapes... cone, triangle, cube, sphere,  semi-circles etc as well as a large reflective pool.

Embodied in the concrete is titanium, granite, and marble.

The museum is open from 9 to 5 daily, except Mondays. Entrance is 500yen

Shikoku 88 Temple 19 Tatsue-ji

Tatsueji is known as a "sekisho", a barrier gate or spiritual checkpoint. There are stories of pilgrims who could not enter the temple grounds and therefore not continue with the pilgrimage because they were impure of heart.

Believed to be founded by Gyogi, who carved a miniature Jizo as the main deity, Kukai later visited and carved a much larger statue and enshrined the original inside it. It is now a Shingon temple.

Like so many other temples, Tatsueji was burned down by Chosokabe and then rebuilt afterwards at its present location. The current building date from 1977, built after another fire.

The very nice ceiling paintings in the new main hall were painted by art students from Tokyo.

In a small concrete shrine in the grounds are the old bell rope with a womans hair attached. This is from the most famous story of Tatsueji, the story of Okyo. Okyo, a woman from Hamada here in Iwami was sold as a girl to a brothel in Hiroshima. Later resold to Osaka she met and fell in love with a man called Yosuke. They both ran away and returned to Hamada and married. Later she began an affair with a man called Chozo and together they plotted and killed Yosuke. They ran away to Shikoku and began the pilgrimage. The Shikoku Pilgrimage has always had a reputation as a place where people could hide. When they got as far as Tatsueji Okyos hair became entangled in the bell rope. She confessed their sins to the priest and then devoted their lives to being devout Buddhists and lived out their lives in Tatsue.

To Inome

After leaving Onamuchi's shrine the narrow road continues to wind steeply up the mountainside. I love walking these roads as they are more like wide asphalted hiking trails with very little traffic, maybe 1 or 2 vehicles an hour and they usually being Post Office or delivery vans.

At the pass the road forks and I take the right-hand one, the road less travelled, and now I enjoy the road even more as it descends. geologically speaking japan is a very new land, so erosion has not smoothed out the mountains and so they are still steep.  The only sound is of rushing water on its way to the Japan sea a few kilometers downhill

Approaching the village of Inome, it was mostly tea in the fields. Inome means "Wild Boar Eye" and refers to a nearby sea cave that is shaped like a wild boars eye. According to the Izumo Fudoki dreaming of this cave was a portent of your imminent death. The cave is also considered to be one of several entrances to Yomi, the underworld, the most famous one being the one used by Izanagi

Tea does not need flat land to be grown, which suggests that these were once rice-paddies. There was no-one on the street of the village who I could ask.

In the middle of the village the Otoshi Shrine with its unusual double honden

More Flowers of Shikoku

Continuing with some more photos of flowers I noticed while walking around Shikoku on the 88 temple pilgrimage. This one was in the mountains of Tokushima the day after the typhoon had passed in early September.

These were growing in late September in the bank between rice paddies just across from bangai temple 4, Saba Daishi, where I spent the night in the free accomodation.

These were growing in early October down in Kochi after rounding Cape Muroto

These were a few days later a little south of Kochi City. I am afraid I am not very knowledgeable about what any of these flowers are..... maybe a reader can enlighten us?

Of course one place you will always find flowers are beneath buddhist statues and gravestones. These were at temple 32 Zenjibuji. Many times they will not be real flowers, but these were. I remember being very impressed with the flowers on diplay in Mitakedera in Hiroshima and marvelling at how dedicated the staff must be to have so many fresh flowers on offer and when I looked closely realizing that they were plastic.

Hagi castle

Following the success of the Tokugawa at the Battle of Sekigahara the Mori Clan were stripped of most of their landholdings and moved their base from Hiroshima Castle to what is now Hagi in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Construction of hagi castle began in 1604 and was completed in 1608

The Mori ruled here continuously until the Meiji Restoration and the castle was dismantled following the law of 1874 that decommissioned most Japanese castles.

All that remains now are the stone walls and base.