Yumeminato Pavilion

 

Attached to the Yumeminato Tower in Sakaiminato, Tottori, is the Yumeminato Pavilion.

They are both remaining structures from an Expo that was held here in 1997.

In front of the pavillion are several sculptures. They take the form of metal boxes with holes in the shape of Yokai.

Sakaiminato is a Yokai capital in Japan as it is the birthplace of Mizuki Shigeru, a manga artist responsible for reviving many traditional yokai and for creating many ne yokai. Similar statues can be found in the Yumeminato park that runs from here down the coast a ways, and along Mizuki Shigeru Road.

When we visited on this trip, about 20 years ago, the lower floor was devoted to sales of souvenirs and local specialities

On the upper floor was an exhibition that included a full size Mongolian yurt.

There was also a collection of national costumes of countries of East Asia available for visitors to try on and be photographed in.

I was unsure why the focus on Asia, but then I later learnt that a Japanese anthropologist who specialized in Iran and Mongolia and the Silk Road, was born near here.

Later I was to visit a large, but decaying, museum near here dedicated to him.

Yokai made their presence known a little around the building, but at that time I was more interested in the  geometry and light and shadow of the architecture.

The previous post in this series was on the Yumeminato Tower.

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Tottori the Final Prefecture

Tottori

I come down from Kiyomizudera temple via the old trail between the temple and the Shugendo centre of Mount Daisen.

I pass under the new expressway that follows Route 9, the original Sanin-do, the least travelled of the imperial routes.

I visit one more shrine in Shimane, photos below, and then I cross into Tottori, the final prefecture of the pilgrimage.

I started out walking through Okayama, then into Hiroshima, before walking along the southern coast of Yamaguchi to the tip of Honshu, then along the northern coast of Yamaguchi before passing through my home prefecture of Shimane.

28 of the 33 pilgrimage temples visited......

4 of the remaining 5 temples will be new to me....

The previous post was on the ancient Kiyomizudera Temple.....

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Deeper into Remote Iwami

Iwami

I started day 10 of my walk along the Iwami Mandala Kannon Pilgrimage in the mountains of SW Shimane at Akayamatenmangu Shrine. My route will take me roughly south, a little deeper into the mountains. This is an unknown area to me.

For a while, I follow the Masuda River upstream and pass by a small shrine on the hillside.

It's not a big river at this point, so I wondered what the civil engineering was all about...

At first I thought it was tetrapods they were casting, but then I saw they were some kind of tessellate. Not sure what the purpose was, but suspect that down the line even more costly works will have to be done to undo the effect of these works...more profits for concrete and construction companies...

Then a huge rock covered in greenery with numerous little Buddhist statues set inside an overhang.

Nearby a small shrine, and then not far away, a more substantial "hall" with some quite old statues

As usual, I didn't take notes while walking, but now I cannot find such a place on the map...

A clump of banana trees, and then a big surprise: the remains of an industrial installation

Turns out to be a big mine. The Tsumo mining area has been mining copper, zinc, lead, and tungsten since at least 836. During the Edo Period, it was controlled by Iwami Ginzan. One often reads about Japan's "few" natural resources, but they have mined copper, silver, and gold for almost 2,000 years, as well as coal.

During the war, production was increased and Korean slave labour was used. After the war, a huge deposit was discovered, and in the 70s, 200 people were employed here. The mine closed in 1986 as foreign imports were cheaper, the same fate as the coal industry in Japan.

An intriguing sidenote,.... a rare mineral was discovered here with a 1:1 ratio of bismuth atoms to tellurium atoms. This new mineral, Tsumoite, is named after this mine where it was discovered.

Now the area is quiet, and no traffic passed me....

Later, some contemporary mining..... of timber. In the postwar period, the government planted much of Japan with huge tree farms. Foreign-imported wood is much cheaper now, so these huge swaths of monoculture now cause landslides and force bears into the inhabited areas, as well as give a large percentage of the population hay fever. The government is now spending a fortune to try to correct the situation.

I am now getting into the Hikimi area, higher in the mountains and closer to the Hiroshima border.

After climbing over a pass, I am now heading down the Noto River.

The previous post was on Tenei Hachimangu, the last stop yesterday.

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Kiyomizudera Temple 28 Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage

Kiyomizudera Temple 28 Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage

There are many Kiyomizudera temples scattered across Japan. This one is in Yasugi, Shimane, and may very well be the oldest.

Kiyomizudera literally means "Pure Water Temple", and the most famous is the one in Kyoto.

The temple is very old with the date of 587 generally given for its founding.

According to the legend, an itinerant monk named Sonryu investigated the mountain where locals claimed an eerie light could be seen. He found an old man who gave him a statue of Kannon, and so the first, crude structure housing the statue was erected. Not long afterwards a spring of clear water appeared.

The temple had imperial support as well as from local powers and grew in stature.

At its peak it had 48 buildings, though now only 10 are left. It was the premier temple in the whole San-in region.

The main hall is dated to 1393, and is an Important Cultural Property along with several statues dating back to the Heian Period.

One of the huge trees lining the final set of stairs is said to be 1,000 years old.

In the Gomado next to the main hall are several Fudo statues and a Zao Gongen statue.

The stone statue of Fudo at the start of the climb up to the temple is particularly fine. Top photo.

In 847, a disciple of Saicho stopped here on his way back from China, and since then it has been a Tendai temple.

In the battles between the Amago and the Mori in the late 16th century, everything except the main hall was destroyed by fire.

The pagoda, the last remaining 3-storey wooden pagoda in San-in, was built in 1859.

Unusually, visitors are allowed inside to climb to the upper level.

There is quite a large Inari shrine in the temple.

I left via the Niomon and took a trail down the mountain. This suggests that in earlier times the temple was primarily approached from the East.

On the current approach to the temple there are two eateries offering traditional temple cuisine, Shojin Ryori.

The previous post was on the walk here from Unjuji Temple.

If you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts.