Minenoyama-an & Hondo Temples 22, 23 Shodoshima Pilgrimage

 

Boxing Day, December 26th, 2015, and I set off on the third day of my walk along the Shodoshima Pilgrimage.

Its another glorious day of blue skies and my plan is to go down and then back up the Mito Peninsula that protrudes from the south of the island.

But first there are the last couple of temples in the old town part of Kusakabe.

The first is Minenoyama-an, on some high ground with great views over the Inland Sea and surrounded by a large cemetery. It is unmanned and the suffix -an tells that it is classed as a "hermitage", though the main building is a bit larger than most hermitages I've come across so far and is more like a large farmouse. The honzon is a Thousand-Armed Kannon.

Nearby, literally on the other side of a small elementary school, is temple 23, curiously named Hondo, which means main hall.

It is said to be the main hall of the pagoda of Seikenji, temple 21 which I visited yesterday and is not too far away. Whether the pagoda stood here or if the hondo was moved to this spot is not clear.

It's quite an elegant building that I would describe as Chinese-style.

The honzon is a Shaka Nyorai said to have been carved by Genshin, a prominent Tendai monk from Enryakuji of the late Heian Period who is known mostly for his writings, but is said to have carved the statue at Yasakaji, temple 24 on Shikoku.

Next I head along the main coast road to the next settlement which has 4 pilgrimage temples to visit. The previous post in this series was on the last 4 temples I visited yesterday, Christmas Day.

Dojindo Shrine Tojin Yashiki

 

Tojin Yashiki was the walled and gated compound that housed Chinese merchants and sailors in Nagasaki between 1689 and 1859.

The Dutch had been confined earlier, and the Chinese compound was larger and held many more people. however they were held under  less strict conditions and there were also large numbers of ethnic Chinese who were "naturalized citizens" and who were often the officials charged with guarding and controlling Tojin Yashiki.

The Dojin-do was constructed within the compound by ship owners in 1691, the fist shrine built within the compound.

It enshrines Tu Di Gong, a kind of Daoist tutelary land  deity of a specific location. It seems to be the equivalent of what in my area is called Omoto and what in the Izumo area is called Kojin, and was a very popular deity among the Chinese.

The shrine burned down in a great fire of 1784 but was rebuilt with donation from the great Chinese temples in Nagasaki, Sofukuji, Kofukuji, and Fukusaiji, temples which the residents of Tojin Yashiki could visit as long as guarded.

The shrine was dismantled down to its foundations in 1950 but was restored in 1977.

The previous post was on the Chinatown just below Tojin Yashiki.

Tsuyama Snapshots

 

Early August, 2014, and I set off from my hotel and start the fifth day of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage. I will walk north out of Tsuyama and then head west. I had celebrated my 60th birthday recently, and while walking with a heavy backpack in the hot and humid weather was not exactly fun, it was certainly bearable,  now nine years later I cannot imagine doing it today. Near the hotel I passed a small roadside Inari Shrine.

The Yoshii River runs along the southern edge of Tsuyama.

With the early morning light, the impressive ruins of Tsuyama castle were clearer.

Near the station is the Tsuyama Manabi Railway Museum hosed in an old Roundhouse with turntable. I believe the museum has been somewhat improved since I was there, and there is a single steam locomotive and about a dozen other trains most dating back to the 1960's and 70's. Quite nostalgic as I was a trainspotter myself till I became a teenager.

My guess would be that this abandoned building was once a ryokan.

This area, formerly Mimasaka Province, has many legends and stories of Kappa, the mythical water sprite, and the main street of Tsuyama has a series of small statues depicting them.

The previous post was the historic Kajimura Residence I visited at the end of the previous day.

Nagasaki Shinchi the Oldest Chinatown in Japan

 

By the 17th century there were Chinese settlements all over Kyushu engaged in trade. In 1635 the Japanese government restricted all trade to the single port of Nagasaki, and so the Chinese moved there.

It is thought that around one sixth of the population of Nagasaki were Chinese, but they were not confined like the Dutch traders on Dejima.

However, by the late 17th century the Shogunate became increasingly concerned about smuggling and so a walled and gated  compound called Tojin Yashiki was constructed and all Chinese confined there.

In 1859 the Japanese policy of national seclusion ended and Tojin Yashiki was demolished and many of the Chinese residents moved to the Shinchi area.

For two weeks after the Chinese New Year the Nagasaki lantern Festival is held is held at several sites across Nagasaki, including Shinchi.

I visited a few days after it had finished but floats and other evidence of the festival still remained.

I did not spend any time exploring Shinchi as I was far more interested in the nearby area of the former Tojin Yashiki. The previous post in this series was on Dejima, the Dutch settlement.

Iriomote Island Snapshots

 

Iriomote Island, 90 percent covered in fairly impenetrable jungle and mangrove swamps has a thriving pineapple industry and has recently started a pineapple beer festival.

I will post more on Iriomote beaches later, but here are a couple of shots of singular objects embedded in the sand.

Not much text today, just photos to enjoy...

An almost circular hole in a tidal rock is filled with bits of coral

Of course a wide variety of flowers can be found.....

A couple of coastal settlements have small areas of rice paddies.

Compared to mainland Japan, the coastline of Iriomote has relatively little in the way of tetrapods and other concrete fortifications.

A rare sight anywhere in Japan, a free-grazing cow at pasture.

The previous post in this Okinawa series was on the Urauchi River and Mariudo Falls.

Dejima

 

A scale model, made in 1976, showing how Dejima looked around 1820, is on display at the reconstructed island "home" of the Dutch traders in Nagasaki during the Edo Period.

The Dutch, the only Europeans allowed to trade, lived here from 1641 to 1859 after being moved here from nearby Hirado. The Portuguese were on Dejima for a few years prior to that before they were all expelled from Japan.

The only Japanese people allowed into the compund were government officials and prostitutes.

Some of the buildings only date back as far as the Meiji Period, after Japan "opened" and a larger foreign presence was established. This was the International Club, built in 1903, by foreign residents as a social meeting place.

The first protestant seminary was established here in 1878.

Restoration and rebuilding continues and over time more interiors will be finished and opened to visitors.

As well as the "foreign" buildings, there are some purely Japanese structures where government officials conductd business.

Gradually more restoration work is bring done on the waterways around Dejima to bring it back to its historical state.

The previous post in this series exploring Nagasaki was the nearby  Nagasaki Prefectural Museum of Art