Aoi Aso Shrine

 

Unfortunately, the bridge you see here was severely damaged in the devastating floods that hit this area of Kumamoto earlier in 2020. It leads to Aoi Aso Shrine in Hitoyoshi, but fortunately, the buildings of the shrine were not badly damaged.

As I mentioned in my last post on the Okyu Shrine, there seems to be a lot of thatch in this area, and if you were impressed with the Okyu Shrine gate, then the one here is much bigger. In fact, the 5 main buildings of the shrine are National Treasures, the southernmost in all Japan.

All the structures were constructed in the first decades of the 17th Century, though the shrine was established in the early 9th century as a branch of Aso Shrine located further north at the active volcano Mount Aso.

There are a lot of kami enshrined here, but the main three are obviously the same as Aso Shrine and are Takeiwatatsu, grandson of mythical first emperor Jimmu, Asotsuhime, wife of Takeiwatatsu, and the third is their daughter.

Okyu Shrine Taragi

 

Continuing my walk down the Kuma River I next stopped at Okyu Shrine, a small, local shrine on the north bank of the river. It has a quite impressive main gate  which, like more than a few buildings in this area, is thatched.

Inside the gate are a pair of Buddhist Nio guardians. This would have been fairly common in the days before the government artificially separated Buddhism and Shinto, and though almost never seen in most of Japan is still seen here in Kyushu.

Ther was also a pair of Zuijin, the Shinto equivalent to Nio.

The shrine was founded in 807, and the gate dates from 1416, though it underwent renovation in 1907. There was no info on which kami are enshrined here.

Samurai Gardens of Kitsuki

Kitsuki's Samurai Gardens

Kitsuki is a small, historic castle town in Oita. It is claimed to be the smallest castle in Japan. To the west of the castle, on a high bluff overlooking the town, is a former samurai district.

 

About half a dozen of these former samurai homes are open to the public, and as these were fairly high ranking sanurai, their homes were large and included gardens.

For this post I have chosen to focus on views of the garden from inside the houses.

Kitsuki is on the southern edge of the Kunisaki Peninsula, an area I am rather fond of, and these photos were taken on the 4th day of my walk around the peninsula during a November, so the gardens had some good autumn colors.

 

Kabosu Juice From Oita Prefecture

The Views From The Kurushima Kaikyo Bridge

 

The Kurushima Kaikyo Suspension Bridge(s) are the last of the bridges on the Shimanami Kaido, the road that connects Honshu with Shikoku across a series of island-hopping bridges. A post about this amazing structure I posted earlier.

The views across the island -studded Inland Sea are great from any highish point and the bridges tend to get quite high, so.........

The Inland Sea was once the major transportation route of Japan, and it is still a very busy waterway so you can look down on many boats and ships.

As you approach Shikoku, Imabari is clearly seen to the SE.

The Biggest Statue of Kobo Daishi

As you head down the coast road towards Cape Muroto in the diatance you can see a white statue on the hillside. This is above Raieeiji Temple and is not part of the Shikoku Pilgrimage, but the statue is of the legendary founder of the pilgrimage, Kobo Daishi.

As a young man Kobo Daishi came here and practised austerities in a cave on the seashore, and te statue represents him as at that age.

The statue  was completed in the 1980's and stands 21 meters tall including its pedestal. Right behind it is another largish statue, of the reclining Buddha, or sometimes known as Buddha entering Nirvarna. There are a few recling buddha statues in Japan though it is not as widely seen as in many other East Asian countries, and this one is claimed to be the first gilded one.

The climb up to view the statues is worth it for the great views.

Kanjizaiji Temple 40 on the Shikoku Pilgrimage

 

On December 26th, 2011, my 25th day of walking teh famous Shikoku Pilgrimage, I crossed the border into Ehime and reached temple number 40, Kanjizaiji.

According to the founding legend, Kobo Daishi visited here and carved three statues, one of them of Yakushi Nyori, the temples Honzon. It is a "hidden buddha" and only shown to the public every 50 years, the next time being 2034.

The buildings are all fairly modern reconstructions, though the nio guardians are obviously much older.

Techncally this is the temple that is furthest from Ryozenji Temple, the starting point for most pilgrims, and depending on the route you take it is a little past the halfway point, in distance, of the whole pilgrimage.

The temple has a tsuyado, a small room offering free lodgings for pilgrims and this is where I stayed.

Jizo & Dragons at Taisanji Temple

Taisanji Temple is a mountaintop temple in Tokushima is that is both the first of the extra "bangai" temples over above thye standard 88, and also the first temple on the 36 temple Shikoku Fudo Myo Pilgrimagr which was the pilgrimage I was walking when I visited Taisanji.

There wasn't an awful lot of statuary there, but several of the Jizo statues were lit with the late afternoon sun and made for some nice photos.

Dragons are commonly used as spouts for water prification basins, but they are usually made of metal or sometimes ceramic, but the one here is most unusual.

Dragons also appeared on the carvings of some of the buildings.

This final photo is a statue of a man taking part bin Rikimochi, an annual festival held on the 3rd Sunday of January and when men compete to see how far they can carry a very heavy New Year rice cake, kagami mochi

A Walk Across Akiyoshidai

Akiyoshidai, a karst of about 100 square kilometers in central Yamaguchi Prefecture is the largest limestone plateau in Japan.

About 300 million years ago it was a coral reef under the ocean. With limestone being soluble in water karsts tend to have lots of underground water and therefore lots of caves and caverns. Underneath Akiyoshidai is Akiyoshido, the largest cavern in all of Japan.

The surface of the plateau has lots of sinkholes which makes for a very uneven landscape. There are also loads of rock pinnacle sticking up.

In the late autumn when I walked across it there was a lot of Japanese pampas grass growing. It is a very unusual landscape for Japan. It is semi artificial in that every year the dried grass covering the plateau is burned which tends to inhibit the growth of trees and stops the landscape reverting to forest.

Palace of the Dragon King

Nochigashima is a tiny, rocky islet just off the Hiyoriyama Coast in northern Hyogo. It is home to a collection of structures with a distinct Chinese style. They were built in the 1950's to memorialize an ancient local fairy tale/legend.

The story dates back to the earliest writings in Japan, the Manyoshu, Nihon Shoki, and the Fudoki. Like all such stories it exists in many forms and has been embellished over the centuries but its basic story contains elements familiar to many similar stories around the world.

Urashima Taro was a local fisherman who saved a turtle. He was rewarded by being taken down under the sea to the palace of the Dragon King and was entertained by one of his daughters, a beautiful princess. After a few days he decided to return home. Before keaving the princess gave hima jewelled box but told him never to open it.

Whenhe returned to the surface he discovered that in the few days he had spent in the undersea world  a hundred years had passed up on the surface. He opened the box and suddenly transformed into a very old man. Another version has him transforming into a crane. Both the turtle and crane are Daoist symbols of longevity very prevalent in Japanese culture and art.

A Walk Along the Japan Sea Coast Kuromatsu

In  the wake of the typhoon that had passed by a few days ago the sea was still far more active than normal and as I approached Kuromatsu it seemed somewhat bleaker than usual.

A far cry from the white beaches and calm, turquoise sea that Kuromatsu is known for in the summer.

For me Kuromatsu is associated with one of my favorite festivals, the summer festival, when boats travel out to the small island offshore to bring the goddess to the land. A couple of posts on thos matsuri are here and here.

A typhoon always brings out the surfers..... the waves may not look like much to someone from California or Hawaii, but people travel a long way for them here in Shimane.

Three small rivers/streams empty into the sea in Kuromatsu, though two disappear into the sand of the beach.

On my first ever visit to Kuromatsu I discovered a memorial to the 47th Ronin, the one who didn't comitt ritual suicide in one of the most well known Japanese legends..... but that deserves a post of its own

Konomineji Temple 86 on the Sasaguri Pilgrimage

 

Konomoineji is number 86 on the 88 temple pilgrimage in Sasaguri near Fukuoka, but the temples are not arranged in numerical order, so it was actually the 8th temple we visited.

In fact we had only been walking about an hour and a half to get this far, though the route now headed up into the mountains and the frequency of temples would decrease.

Like most of the temples on this pilgrimage it was unmanned. Also like all the temples on the pilgrimage, no matter how small, there were lots of statues, especially of Fudo Myo.

Though only about 50k in length, it is a surprisingly popular pilgrimage and I would recommend it to anyone who wanted a taster of a pilgrimage, or anyone who is fascinated by Buddhist statuary.