Echizen-toge Pass

Early on my second day walking the Saigoku Pilgrimage I left the Jizo Jaya Teahouse area and followed the stone path through the forest.

Over one pass, then a short downhill then a short uphill to Echizen Toge Pass. From here it is about a 4k downhill walk to the river about 800 meters lower in altitude. Most people climb up as part of the Nakahechi route of the Kumano Kodo, but I was walking the Saigoku Pilgrimage which follows the same route but in the opposite direction. It is said that the climb up to Echizen Toge is the toughest part of the route.

Yesterday I had passed only one soul walking the trail in the opposite direction to me. Today I past several largish groups of chattery people on their way up. They must hve started pretty early and were obviously planning to get to Nachi before the day was too old.

There were, of course, plenty of statues along the wayside. At the river, I started back up as I had another climb and descent before I reached my destination for the day, Hongu.

Mizukarakuri Ningyo at Toyotamahime Shrine

Karakuri Ningyo are a type of mechanical doll that was very popular in the Edo Period. A rarer form was the water-powered mechanical doll, an example of which I found at Toyotama Shrine in Chiran. Behind the glass case displaying this tableau was a small waterwheel that powered the figures' movements.

Unfortunately, it is only operated  for a few days during a festival. Every year a different set up is displayed. This one was about a local legend involving demons.

The shrine appears to be the main one for Chiran, and enshrines Toyotamahime, the "princess" who was a daughter of the Undersea King. The myth is very popular and many shrines in southern Kyushu enshrines the various characters from the story

There was no-one about as it was still early in the morning and I had to head off  and reach the coast before heading north on this my 35th day of walking around Kyushu.

Anger From the Bottom by Beat Takeshi

As I was climbing up towards the first mountain temple on the Shodoshima Pilgrimage I spied ahead of me what I guessed was a kind of shrine. When I got to it I was faced with a stainless steel figure with big red eyes and an axe embedded in its skull.

Anger From the Bottom is a sculpture by "Beat" Takeshi Kitano and Keniji Yanobe, originally produced for the Setouchi Art Triennale that takes place in the area. It is one of the artworks that is now permanently on display.

Originally there was no roof over it, and the statue was below ground only rising up for 5 minutes every hour. Takeshi is famous in japan as a comedian and TV presenter, but internationally he is known as a film-maker. The unexpected and surprising is a large part of why I enjoy my walks around rural Japan......

Chiran Samurai District

I wandered around the Samurai district in Chiran early in the morning before tourists had arrived. I recently posted on the gardens found in many of the former samurai residences. It is a Preservation District of Groups of Traditional Buildings, one of about 120 such districts around Japan, and I have come to enjoy most of the ones I have visited, though the better ones tend to be, like here in Chiran,  off the beaten track

Primarily one street, it is lined with well-constructed stone walls topped with impenetrable hedges. To get into any residence or garden you have to pass through a high-walled corridor that twists and tiurns at 90 degrees several times, a classic defensive arrangement found in many castles.

This was a semi-fortified village. The Shogunate decreed that each domain must only have one castle. This resulted in many castles being dismantled, and others moved. It was also decreed that all samurai must live within the castle town. Here in the distant lands of the Satsuma in southern Kyushu, this last law was ignored.

The Satsuma placed settlements of samurai throughout their domain, Chiran being just one. This was obviously a defensive measure by the Satsuma, but may also have been simple logistics, because the Satsuma had a high percentage of samurai. A figure of 10% is often considered the percentage of samurai in the Japanese population, but here in Satsuma the figure was above 20%.

Okayama Castle

Okayama Castle was constructed between 1573 to 1597 by the Ukita Clan. They were on the wrong side of the Battle of Sekigahara and so the castle passed briefly to the Kobayakawa Clan before coming under the control of the Ikeda Clan who held it until the abolition of the domains in 1869.

The castle's nickname was  Crow Castle because of its black exterior. The famous Himeji Castle not far away was likewise nicknamed "White Egret Castle".

The Asahi River was utilized as a moat on two sides of the castle.

Some of the roof decorations are gilded, but for its first few years all the roof tiles were  gilded earning it the nickname Golden Crow Castle.

This last photo is taken from Korakuen Garden which was built by the Ikeda.

Samurai Gardens of Chiran

At the start of day 35 of my first walk around the island of Kyushu I wandered around the former samurai district in Chiran, a small town  in the south of Kagoshima. Seven of the former samurai residences are open to the public, but none of the buildings can be entered. However they all have delightful gardens.

Most of the gardens are relatively small and usually incorporate the distant mountains as "borrowed scenery". The first photo is the garden at the Saigo Keiichiro residence. This second photo is at the Hirayama Ryoichi residence. Its garden is unusual in that it has no stone arrangements, and is primarily pruned hedges, including azalea. This type of garden was an Edo period innovation and is usually attributed to Kobori Enshu.

Obviously, all these residences belonged to fairly high ranking samurai. The above garden belonged to Sata Mifune. 6 of the 7 gardens are karesansui, dry gardens with no water.

This one belonged to Sata Tamiko, and the bottom photo belonged to Mori Shigemitsu. It is the only garden with a water feature, and I believe he was the most senior samurai of the district

Gongendo Shrine Ishigaki

Gongendo Shrine is a Shinto shrine on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa Prefecture. It is claimed that Okinawa is part of Japan, and it is also claimed that "Shinto" is the indigenous religion of Japan that dates back thousands of years into the mists of prehistory.

Gongendo Shrine was established in 1614, though it was destroyed by a tsunami in 1771 and rebuilt in 1786. and as far as I am able to discover was the first Shinto shrine on the island.

The Ryukyu Kingdom was established on the main island of what is now called Okinawa in the 15th Century and later took control of Ishigaki. In 1609 the Japanese Satsuma Clan invaded the Ryukyus and established military domination. Gongendo Shrine was built in 1614.

Like most Japanese shrines of that time Shinto architecture and ornaments and such were heavily Buddhist, and so it is here at Gongendo, though the Chinese influence is evident. Gongendo Shrine is immediately adjacent to Torinji Buddhist temple which I will cover in my next Okinawa post

Ishigaki Sea Salt

Chiran Peace Museum

Hundreds of stone lanterns line the main road that leads towards the Chiran Peace Museum in Chiran, southern Kagoshima. Chiran was an airbase operating during WWII that was home to one of the "Special Attack Squadrons", known as kamikaze in English.

All the displays are to do with the kamikaze operations and it is heavily focussed on the pilots themselves. It is very much a place to memorialize them and revere them.

The grounds of the museum also includes a Shinto shrine and a Buddhist temple, both of which revere the dead pilots. Photography was not allowed inside the museum.

I was quite uncomfortable during my visit as there was a heavily nationalistic element to the place, and in my humble opinion nationalism is not connected with peace. Individuals sacrificing their lives for the state is an increasingly popular ideology, especially for the sociopaths who comprise the state.

There seems to be no mention of the indoctrination that caused the sacrifice of the pilots in an unwinnable war, nor that such tactics likely influenced the decision to drop the nuclear bombs.

Many of the "peace" museums in Japan focus almost exclusively on Japanese victims. A few that didn't have in recent years had their funding removed.

Kitsuki Castle the Smallest Castle in Japan

Kitsuki Castle

Claimed to be the smallest castle in Japan, Kitsuki castle is located in northern Kyushu in the town of Kitsuki in Oita.

The keep is a mere three storeys, but the castle does occupy a strategic position on a headland overlooking the river and sea.

A castle was built here in the late 14th Century by Kitsuki Yorinao, though it must be said that the Japanese definition of castle would in many cases be called s small fortification in English.

I like Kitsuki. There is an excellent, well-preserved samurai district near the castle which I will post on later. The current keep is a modern reconstruction though they have made an effort to keep signs of modern times out of the grounds.

Kabosu Juice From Oita Prefecture

Daikokuji Temple 97 on the Kyushu Pilgrimage

Situated on top of Mount Kunimiyama above the town of Makurazaki in the far southeast of Kagoshima is Daikokuji Temple, number 97 on the Shingon Kyushu Pilgrimage of 108 temples.

I got here on day 34 of my walk, and was met at the gate by several youngish people with shaved heads. In fact there were quite a few young people walking around the temple grounds and it seemed far more active than any others I had been to.

The most intriguing things were the statues. More than 100 of them, including 88 representing the Shikoku pilgrimage. Most of them were large, brightly colored, and obviously not made by professional sculptors.

Though it is a Shingon temple it also had a Zen dojo. There were also lots of photos of many foreign visitors and guests. The view down and across to Kaimondake was also nice. An unusual and particularly friendly place.