Miura Catholic Church Sasebo

 

Miura Catholic Church is located on a hillside overlooking the port and train station of Sasebo in Nagasaki.

The parish was established in 1897 and the church was built in 1931. It is said to be in Gothic style and was built using reinforced concrete. In any other part of Japan it might be confused with a wedding "chapel" which are often also built in a simplified Gothic form, but in Nagasaki there are a lot of genuine Christian churches.

During the war it was painted black to stop it being an easy landmark for American bombers aiming for Sasebo.

The previous post was on Arcus Sasebo, seen below with the church in reflection.

Iriomote Island Beaches

 

As of this posting, we are "enjoying" an unusually early cold and snowy spell, so these images are for the rest of you in the northern hemisphere right now.

Iriomote is a fairly large island in the Ishigaki Islands, not far from the coast of Taiwan. In fact it is the second largest island in all of the Okinawas.

Most of the island is fairly dense jungle and mangrove swamp and is home to the Iriomote Wild Cat.

The island is sparsely populated and lives along the single coastal road that covers about 2/3 of the coastline.

Iriomote has a lot of fine beaches and coastline suitable for snorkelling.

It also has a fair amount of coastal mangrove groves.

The most famous beach is called Starsand Beach because among the sand you can find tiny star-shaped grains.

These pics were taken in April, well outside the tourist season and so mostly deserted.

The previous post was on the water buffalo carts of Yubu Island.

Arcus Sasebo

 

Arcus Sasebo is a large, new cultural and exhibition centre with several stages and a large auditorium.

It is located close to the station and the port in the renovated downtown area of Sasebo.

It opened in 2000 and was designed by AXS Satow.

A little earlier on my trek around Kyushu I visited another structure by AXS Satow, the Saga Space & Science Museum, and I can detect some stylistic similarities.

Actually I had a bit of trouble finding info on the building because even though its proper name is Arcus, it is most often written as Arkas, which is how the Japanese version of Arcus, Arukasu, is translated back to roman alphabet.

I got to Sasebo late on my 65th day walking around Kyushu and was to spend 3 nights here as a convenient location to get to a cluster of temples in the surrounding area.

The previous post in the series was on the Saikai Bridges...

Glimpses of Futagoji Temple

 

Futagoji Temple is a large Tendai temple on the Kunisaki Peninsula in Oita, Kyushu. Pictured above are the steps leading up to the Okunoin.

Situated in the centre of the peninsula and on the lower slopes of its namesake, the highest point, 720 meters high Mount Futago.

Since the Edo Period, it has been the head temple of the Rokugo Manzan, the unique mountain-worshipping religion that is a syncretic mix of Tendai Buddhism and Usa Hachimangu shinto.

The honzon is a Thousand-armed Kannon and the temple has many other superb statues and paintings.

The Okunoin, further up the mountainside is set against a cliff and is well worth the extra climb.

On this trip I passed through the temple grounds fairly quickly as I was pressed for time and had to climb to the top of the mountain.

A few years later I returned and spent much longer here and took many more photos, so that will come in a later post on the Kyushu Fudo Myo Pilgrimage.

Earlier I posted on the approach to the temple which has the largest stone Nio in all of the peninsula.

The previous post was on the 360-degree views from on top of Mount Futago.

Saikai Bridge

 

The Saikai Bridge crosses the narrow Hario Strait which connects Omura Bay with the ocean. When built in 1955 it was the largest arch bridge in East Asia, and the 3rd largest in the world.

At its narrowest point of only 200 meters, the Hario Strait is known for the whirlpools and rapid tides that occur especially during the Spring and Autumn. Omura Bay also has another strait but it is much longer and narrower and looks like a river.

Shin Saikai Bridge, finished in 2006, crosses the strait nearby and carries a newer road. It is a Half-Through Arch Bridge with a total length of 520 meters.

The Saikai Bridge has a length of 316 meters and the roadway is 43 meters above the sea.

Between the two bridges is a park with 1,000 cherry trees that is very popular during the Spring Whirlpool Festival.

At first, I thought these were three chimneys, but it turns out they are radio transmission towers. The three 136-meter-high towers are laid out in an equilateral triangle with a side of 300 meters. They were completed in 1923 and the signal to the Imperial Navy to start the attack on Pearl Harbor came from these towers.

Also visible in the distance are the higher buildings of the Huis Ten Bosch theme park.

The previous post in this series on day 65 of my walk around Kyushu was of the precursor to Huis Ten Bosch, the Nagasaki Holland Village.

Ido Shrine

 

Ido Shrine in Omori, part of the Iwami Ginzan World Heritage Site, was established in 1888 and worships the deified spirit of Ido Heizaimon, a former magistrate of the district who is known as the "Potato Magistrate".

He became the magistrate of the district in 1731, and in the following year, the Kyoho Famine struck western Japan. Officially there were 12,000 deaths attributed to the famine but in reality, the number was much higher, probably about 169,000. The causes of the famine seem to have been a combination of bad weather and insect infestation leading to a massive increase in the price of rice.

Before receiving permission from the Shogunate, Ido opened the government granaries and distributed the rice to the local population, but mostly he is known for introducing Sweet Potato into the region, hence ensuring that no one in Iwami died from famine.

There are more than 500 monuments in Shimane, Tottori, Okayama, and Hiroshima to the introduction of sweet potatoes by him.

On this visit I was walking the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage and the previous post was on the 500 rakan of Rakanji Temple.

Disappeared Japan Nagasaki Holland Village

 

Nagasaki Holland Village, built in 1983, was the predecessor to Huis Ten Bosch, the massive theme park at the northern end of Omura Bay in Nagasaki.

Nagasaki Holland Village, billed as a replica of Gouda and Hoorn, was mostly successful until the same company built the much bigger Huis Ten Bosch in 1992. It closed and was bought by the local authority, Seihi Town.

After spending a fortune renovating and maintaining it they leased it to a new company and it partially reopened but closed again in 2021 with very poor attendance.

With the company and the local authority in a legal battle over seemingly necessary repair work, it is very doubtful it will ever open again. 

I passed by on day 65 of my first walk around Kyushu. The previous post was the nearby Giant Torii. The previous Disappeared Japan post was the Yamane Residence.