Japanese Cormorant

The Japanese Cormorant, Phalacrocorax capillatus,  known as Umui in Japanese, is also known as Temmincks Cormorant.

It can be found from Taiwan, across Korea and Japan, and as far north as Eastern Russia.

It has been domesticated by the Japanese to use in fishing. Known as Ukai, it can still be seen at many places across Japan.

The only piece of poetry I remember from my schooldays begins.... "the Common Cormorant, or Shag, lays eggs inside a paper bag. The reason you will see, no doubt, is to keep the lightning out...."

Along The Way (Izumo version)

On the afternoon of Sunday, May 13th, 2012, I was on the 4th day of my Izumo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage heading towards temple number 11, Entsuji. The route was further upriver into the mountains, and though it was the main road over the mountains from Izumo to Hiroshima, there was not a lot of traffic.

A lot of people were out in the paddies. Most planting is done mechanically, but corners and patches missed by the machine are done by hand. Most Japanese farmers work at full-time jobs, so being a Sunday there were more people busy....

Planting time is excellent for photography in the countryside as the flooded paddies provide great reflections

The deeper into the mountains you go the more thatched rooves you can see.

Along the Way

On the afternoon of Sunday, September 4th, 2011, the eighth day of my Shikoku Pilgrimage,  I walked the main road west from Temple 21, Tairyuji, towards Temple 22, Byodoji. Early that morning I had left the mountains where I had been trapped by Typoon Talas for a couple of days, took the ropeway up to and down from Tairyuji, and passed through the village of Naka. There were no major sights along the road, but the usual succession of small hokora, roadside shrines, like this one that was guarded by Okinawan style shishi

I climbed up to a largish Hachiman Shrine that, like so many shrines, gave the appearance of being abandoned. I was rewarded by a pair of unusal komainu, something I am always on the look out for. Coming back down to the main road a tiny old lady came out of the door of her house and insisted I sit awhile and drink some cold green tea she offered me.The kindness of strangers. I am not particularly fond of green tea, but it is impolite to refuse Osettai.

You can't walk far in Japan without passing a Jizo, and I must admit I pass many of them by, but a statue of Fudo Myo O, my favorite Buddhist deity, almost always call for a prayer and a photo.

Cresting the pass, the view is, for me anyway, what I would describe as typical Japan.

And then some more small shrines with diverse komainu before encountering what was to be the days most pleasant surprise just before reaching Byodoji.....

Izumo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage Temple 10 Zenjoji

Zenjoji is both the 10th temple of the Izumo 33 Kannon pilgrimage and the twenty fourth temple of the Chugoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage. It is a mountain top temple and has a fine pair of nio in the niomon at the base.

It is believed to have been founded by Gyoki which would put it in the early eighth century.

It is now a Tendai temple. There were 4 small shrines within the grounds including an Inari and one to Zaogongen.

It is quite a pretty temple and of course has superb views.

Chiroku Shrine

Chiroku Shrine

In the Fukuoka area there are quite a few Chiroku (or sometimes Jiroku) shrines. This one is in Ijiri to the south of Hakata and downtown Fukuoka.

They all enshrine the same male-female pair of kami, Takehaniyasuhiko, the male, and Haniyasuhime, the female, and were both created by Izanagi at the same time he created Susano, Amaterasu, etc while purifying himself after his journey to the underworld to visit the deceased Izanami.

The pair of kami are known as the kami of soil, and according to the myth they were created from Izanagi's feces. As the content of Japanese toilets have traditionally been used as fertilizer for farming, its not surprising that these two kami are considered by some to be the kami of the toilet.

There was no signboard at the shrine so its history remains a mystery. All the shimenawa were new in preparation for the impending new year.

Mitoya Tenmangu

After leaving Mine-ji I passed through the town of Mitoya on my way upriver to the next pilgrimage temple, Zenjoji, and stopped in at what appeared to be the main shrine of the town, the Tenmangu.

The newly reconstructed zuijinmon had curtains blocking off the zuijin from view. Being a Tenmangu, the main enshrined deity is Tenjin, considered to be the spirit of Sugawara Michizane.

Curiously it lists Amaterasu along with Tenjin as the main  kami, though I strongly suspect that she is a fairly modern addition.

According to the signboard Michizane spent a few days here during the reign of the Daigo Emperor, which was the time Michizane was "exiled" to Dazaifu. His route to Kyushu from Kyoto would have been through the Inland Sea, so its not clear to me why he would make a trip over the mountains to Izumo. A few hundred meters from this shrine is a small Sugawara Shrine which would seem to reinforce the story.

There are several smaller shrines within the grounds but the only one I could identify was the Inari shrine.

Shokasonjuku Academy

The Shokasonjuku is located in the grounds of the Shoin Shrine in Hagi, Yamaguchi, and is where Yoshida Shoin taught many of the future leaders of Meiji Japan.

It was originally just a single-roomed structure but was expanded due to the large number of students who wanted to attend. It was also his home as at the time he was under house arrest for his attempt to stow away on an American ship.

Shoin taught here for just one year before he was rearrested and the school forced to close.

His students included Ito Hirobumi, the first Prime Minister of Japan, Yamagata Aritomo, Japan's third Prime Minister, Kido Takayoshi, a senior statesman and another of the architects of the new Meiji state, Inoue Kaoru, another major politician and statesman of Meiji Japan.

Izumo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage Temple 9 Mine-ji

I have been to Mineji before and found it to be really interesting. Details about the temple and its history can be found in this post, and a post about the Nio and Fudo Myoo can be found here. One thing that was new this time was that the roof of the Niomon was covered in solar panels.

Though I already had plenty of photos it was a different day with different lighting conditions and I had a different camera, so I wandered around taking more photos.

Its only 180 meters above sea level, but still has nice views down to the valley and town below.

I hadn't noticed the garden before......  I went to the little office to chat with the priests, a father and son, and learnt that there was something else new.... a small tsuyado, a room offered for free for pilgrims to stay in. The son had walked the Shikoku pilgrimage and had obviously stayed in the many tsuyados there. This is the only one I know about on the Izumo 33 pilgrimage. They offered me the use of it for the night, and though there were still several more hours of daylight and my plan had been to sleep out a bit further upriver, I accepted.

The next morning as I was leaving the son came up and gave me some onigiri and fruit to have for breakfast. I like Mine-ji :)

Manhole Horses

There is archeological evidence that horses have been in Japan for thousands of years, however the earliest records of Japan by the Chinese in the third century say that Japan did not have any horses. It is known that horses were introduced from Korea in the 4-5th centuries and this seems to be from when most Japanese horses are descended. The above manhole is from Mochizuki, a small town in Nagano. The area bred and raised horses for the Imperial court since ancient times.

Kushima, at the southern tip of Miyazaki, is home to a breed of wild pony, the Misaki Pony, considered a Japanese breed. They live on Cape Toi and are a tourist attraction. there are about 100 of them. Misaki means "cape".

This final one is from Ishigaki Island in Okinawa, and other than the fact that the area offers horse riding as an attraction I can find no explanation for the horse on their manhole design.

Izumo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage Temple 8 Hasedera

Hasedera, which may actually be called Chokokuji, like so many temples, burned down in 1607 and all its records were destroyed so the date of its origin is unknown.

What is known is that it was a Shingon temple until 1451 when it switched to Soto Zen.

It is a branch tempele of Tainei-ji which is located on the north Yamaguchi coast near Nagato.

The statue of Kannon, carved out of a single piece of wood and registered as a Prefectural Treasure, is considered to be a fine example of Kamakura era statuary.