Seisuiji Temple 7 Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage

 

Seisuiji Temple is a small place up in the middle of what used to be the silver mine in the World Heritage Iwami Ginzan sites.

It is number 7 on the Iwami Mandala Kannon Pilgrimage route, but used to be number 1,  the starting point of the original Edo Period Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage.

It was located high up on the mountain and was probably the most important temple for the mine back in the late 15th, and early 16th centuries.

It was moved to its current location at the base of the mountain in 1878. The gate was moved here in 1931 from a defunct temple that administered the main shrine of the mine. 

The honzon is an eleven-headed Kannon, and the main gate houses a wonderful pair of guardian statues, a Fudo Myo and a Bishamonten. Seisuiji is a Shingon temple.

During the heyday of the mine, the temple received many donations and much support from merchants, samurai, daimyo, and even the Shogun.

This visit was on the 4th day of my walk along the Iwami Pilgrimage, and the previous post was of my walk up through the preservation district of Omori, the town that serviced the mine.

Nagasakiminato Ferry Terminal

 

The Nagasakiminato Terminal is located on the waterfront in Nagasaki.

From here are numerous ferry services, mostly out to the Goto Islands, but also tour boats out to Gunkanjima, the famous "Battleship Island".

The terminal opened in 1995 and was designed by Shin Takamatsu, a Shimane-born architect who has designed several other ferry terminals.

He described the structure as "a 100-meter-long horizontally-oriented oval cylinder with an inverse cone penetrating it."

I am quite fond of Takamatsu's work as we have a lot of his buildings in Shimane.

The ferry terminal is right next door to the Dragon Promenade with its distinctive orange globe.

The spacious interior space created by the "inverted cone" is kind of non functional, but great for my kind of photography.

The previous post on my day exploring Nagasaki on day 60 of my Kyushu Pilgrimage was the Kanko Maru, which I believe is still operating out of the terminal.

Tanezaki to Kajigaura Ferry

 

On the Shikoku Ohenro Pilgrimage, between temple 32, Zenjibuji, and temple 33, Sekkeiji, lies Urado Bay which must be crossed.

The bay narrows to just a few hundred meters at its mouth, and a new bridge, Urado Bridge, carries vehicle traffic 50 meters above the water. It was built in 1972.

Pilgrims on foot or bicycle continue to take a more traditional crossing by ferry.

The ferry connects Kajigaura on the East side of the bay with Tanezaki on the Nagahama side, a distance of about 600 meters

Only pedestrians, cyclists, and small motorbikes 125cc and under are allowed.

I am guessing that in historical times a ferry existed somewhere near here.

The previous post in this series that explores sights seen between the temples on the Ohenro Pilgrimage was Ishizuchi Shrine.

Kanko Maru

 

The Kanko Maru was Japan's first modern warship. Following the forced opening of Japan by Perry's Black Ships the Shogunate realized they needed to modernize their defenses and asked their friends the Dutch for help. In 1855 they gave them one of their steamships operating in the Dutch East Indies. It was built in 1853 and was a three-masted schooner with an auxiliary steam engine powering side paddles.

It was scrapped in 1879 but a faithful replica was built from the original plans in 1987. She operated as a tourist boat out of Huis Ten Bosch, the Holland-themed amusement park near Sasebo, Nagasaki. Now she operates out of different ports around Japan. She has a displacement of 400 tons and is 66 meters in length. The original carried 6 cannons.

She was tied up in Nagasaki on the day I visited as part of my walk around Kyushu on the Kyushu Pilgrimage. The previous post was on the nearby  Dragon Promenade.

Misosogi Shrine Kurotsuchi

 

There are many Misosogi shrines in the Kunisaki Peninsula area, and I recently learned that it was a name given to Rokusho shrines in early Meiji when Buddhism and Shinto were artificially separated.

Not all Rokusho shrines changed their names, and, like Misosogi, there are still many Rokusho shrines in the area.

This is because they are protective shrines for Rokugo Manzan, the unique mountain religion based on a mix of Usa Hachiman and Tendai Buddhism.

Many of these shrines are built into cliff faces.

This one was the former site of Mudo-ji Temple which was moved about 1.5 kilometers upstream at some point in the past and which I had visited earlier.

It was one of ten major pilgrimage temples in the central part of the peninsula and is known now for its wonderful collection of Heian-Period statues.

There was no info at the shrine but I am going to presume that, historically at least, the enshrined kami is Rokugo Gongen.

This was the second day of my walk along the Kyushu Fudo Myo Pilgrimage in which the first few days I followed the old Kunisaki Pilgrimage. The previous post was on the nearby Tsubakido Temple.

Dragon Promenade Nagasaki

 

Dragon Promenade is a kind of urban park on the roof of a utilitarian building on the quayside in downtown Nagasaki.

The building is a long, narrow, concrete box that operates as a warehouse, and above it is a strange structure with a huge orange sphere at one end.

The south side of the superstructure is dark green and composed of steel plate in a somewhat "stealth" kind of design like found on stealth ships and planes.

The whole structure is meant, I believe, to represent a dragon, specifically the dragon used in the Kunchi Festival here in Nagasaki. The orange sphere represents the head.

It has a wooden flooring like a boardwalk, and is semi covered. I believe events are sometimes held here, though whenever I have visited it was empty.

It has a somewhat dilapidated feel to it and I believe is now closed after dark.

It does, however, offer opportunities for the kind of architectural photos I like to take.

It was built in 1998 and architects Michael Rotondi and Clark Stevens are the architects.

I was here on day 60 of my first  Kyushu walk, a kind of a day off as I felt a day in the city would be more comfortable than walking in the rain down the coast.

The previous post was a Day 59 overview.

Yamata no Orochi

 

Yamata no Orochi is a mythical serpent with 8 heads that appears in the Izumo cycle of ancient Japanese myths set in the time before the descent of imperial lineage.

In the myth, Susano defeats the serpent and marries a local princess who was to be sacrificed to the serpent, and so and begins the rise of Izumo culture that predates and later contributed to Yamato culture.

All these photos are of a modern sculpture depicting Orochi outside the Okuizumo Tatara Sword Museum, in Yokota, Shimane. Orochi appears everywhere throughout Izumo, on draincovers and giving its name to many products, including the tourist train I took to get here.

Yokota is on the River Hi which runs through Okuizumo and it is generally held that the 8-headed serpent refers to the 8 tributaries of the river that is at times violent and dangerous. Some commentators suggest that Orochi represents a tribe that fought the Izumo, but so much evidence suggests it was the river. Near here is the shrine for Kushinada, the princess saved from the serpent, and downstream are shrines to her parents. Nearby also is one of the sites said to be where Susano "descended", and spots downstream said to be Orochi's nests are found in narrow gorges where the river would have been particularly dangerous.

The idea of sacrificing humans to a river is fairly widespread around the world as well as here in Japan. I found a riverbank monument to a local lord who was praised by locals when he switched from burying live humans in the river bank to burying clay figures, and stories of human sacrifice to protect new bridges and castle walls are fairly common.

The museum here is on the ancient method of making iron and swords, and Okuizumo was a major centre. In the Orochi myth Susano discovers a sword in the tail of the dead serpent and this went on to be one of the Three Imperial Regalia.

Tatara, a kind of forge used to make iron from iron sand, the method used in Japan, was said to be introduced from mainland Asia, and once again the myths suggest that it was Susano who brought the technology over from Korea. A shrine south of here near Izumo Taisha attest to this.

later I will post on the fascinating history of iron and swordmaking on display in the museum, but in the meantime you may enjoy a wild and dramatic display of Orochi in videos of our local kagura.

The previous post in this series exploring Okuizumo was the Yokota Folk Museum.