HITOHAKU Museum of Natural History & Human Activities in Sanda

 

The next pilgrimage temple on the Kinki Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage is in Sanda, a small city in the mountains of Hyogo, not too far from Kobe and also Osaka.

However, my first stop after arriving in Sanda was a huge museum complex in a park.

It seems to be mostly a Natural History Museum and is aimed at kids.

However, the complex is huge and contains other institutions including research facilities.

Obviously my interest was in the glorious glass facade....

This actually the rear of the museum, facing a big park....

The entrances are on the other side.

I have been unable to find out who the architect was, although I believe it is an adaptation of an existing building.

It opened in its current form in 1992...

Particularly special for me was the section that had mirrored ceiling as well as walls...

Of course the pools of water only added......

I was hard-pressed to reduce the number of photos I used in this post from the more than 70 I took....

I will cover the interior in the next post in the series....

The previous post in this series on the Kinki Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage was on the unusual Rakan statues at Tamonji Temple.

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Mascot Manholes

There are more "cute" mascots per capita in Japan than anywhere else on the world by far. Last year a serious culling took place but still they continue to propagate. Among the latest is even one for the campaign to "promote" the cleanup of the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima.

To my mind such infantile mascots belong in the realm of the under 7's, but I seem to be in a minority. Its not surprising then that such mascots appear sometimes on the manhole and drain covers. The first is of one of the pair (male and female) of mascots for Sanda City in Hyogo. I believe it is based on the official city bird, the green pheasant.

The second depicts Ratochan, the official mascot of Oda City where Iwami Ginzan is located. It is based on the shell-candle miners used to take to light their work underground. The third is from Nakatsu. Kurokankun is based on Kuroda Kanbe, the samurai who built Nakatsu castle.

The fourth is Kintakun, the mascot of Kawanishi in Hyogo, and the final one is I think a cat in samurai helmet representing Hikone.