Cape Uppurui Sunset

 

After climbing up on the other side of Uppuriui Bay I came to the Uppurui Windmill Park on Uppurui Peninsula.

This was my resting stop for the night.

Public toilets and covered picnic areas took care of my primitive needs....

The solitude and beauty took care of my spiritual needs....

With no people around to distract me, no phone, and no chores other than eating, I was free to concentrate on what was around me....

This is one of the reasons why I love sleeping out......

It was not a brilliant sunset, but with so many clouds around it kept constantly changing....

Every now and then I come across someone who has never been camping..... kind of hard to imagine, I know, but the number of people I meet and have met who have slept out under the stars without a tent is small indeed..... I cannot imagine living a life without that experience...... I know I now only manage it a couple of nights a year, but!!!!

The previous post in this series on day 41 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the walk around the bay....

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The Sun Sets on the Yamaguchi Coastline

 

As day 20 draws to a close, I find myself back on the coast for the final leg, walking into Tokuyama.

Our feathered friends seem to have called it a day....

Now I am in the Shunan industrial zone and once again factories dominate the coastline...

Not sure what all these industrial facilities are producing, though I'm pretty sure some are refineries...

I've also read ammonia and synthetic rubber are also produced here..

There are some pretty tall chimneys around Tokuyama, maybe 200 mters tall, spewing who knows what into the atmosphere.

When I visited Tokuyama some years ago I was surprised to learn that there were boat tours to views the night-time views of the industrial area.

Called Kojo Yakei in Japanese, apparently, these tours are increasingly popular in many of the industrial areas especially around Tokyo.

I now read that here in the Shunan area of Yamaguchi there are also bus tours in the evening to various spots with views of the illuminated industrial superstructures.

One hotel has a few rooms with views of the factories and they are priced much higher than the room that do not.

When I finally got into Tokuyama and checked into my room I went down to the small park next to the ferry terminal for the ferry to Kunisaki in Oita, a ferry I have taken many times.

There were illuminations in the park, shown in the final three photos of this post.

The previous post was on the walk in the mountains before I reached the coast.

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Uranouchi Bay to Susaki

 

After alighting from the small ferryboat, I briskly head west towards Susaki where I have a room booked for the night.

It's late November so the days are relatively short with 10 hours of sunshine, and I started the day well before sunrise, but I still have about 10k to go to reach mu hotel so don't dawdle.

I pass a few small wayside shrines....

It's been some time since the rice was cut and harvested but the stalks have had a couple of months to start regrowing

This small henro hut was one used for overnight stays.... there was a portaloo nearby, running water, and an electricity outlet.... right next to the road but a welcome spot for those on a tight budget. I do get the impression that nowadays sleeping out on the henro trail is discouraged and frowned upon, and that is a real shame as it has always been a pilgrimage for the less well off "traveller"  rather than a package tour for tourists.

Approaching Susaki, the other side of the road and river is a huge industrial complex.

I believe this was a Kibune Shrine, but with the sun going down, I did not stop and explore...

It is a huge cement plant with a power station..... I know making cement uses a huge amount of heat, but am not sure if the power plant is to generate the power to produce the cement or if the heat used to produce the cement is used to make electricity.....

Though the standard catch-phrase for Japan in media is "resource-poor", it is in fact totally self-sufficient in cement and concrete...

As the small river I was walking down reaches the bigger Sakura River a big heron takes off...

The Sakura River widens at this point just before emptying into the sea and the setting sun paints a nice picture as I cross over into Susaki and get close to my bed for the night.

And so ends my 18th day walking along the Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage known as Ohenro.

The previous post was on the ferry ride up Uranouchi Bay.

Mukai-an Temple Koshin-do Temple & Saisho-an Temple on the Shodoshima Pilgrimage

Mukai-an Temple

Christmas Eve, 2015, was fast drawing to a close, and I still had three more temples to visit on the route back to my ryokan. I had just come down  from Mount Dounzan and the amazing cave temples, Dounzan and Goishizan, and then stopped in at Jokoji, temple 8, on this, my first day walking the Shodoshima pilgrimage.

Temple number 7, as with 9 and 10, was just a small unmanned building. The honzon is an Amida.

Just a couple of days past the winter solstice, the sun was rushing down and it becane obvious that it would soon be dark so I did not tarry nor explore

Temple 9 was Koshin-do, a site of the very popular Koshin cult. A Daoist cult/faith, it is most well known nowadays for the three monkeys. Many Koshin sites also have these strange looking dolls called Sarubobo in some places.

Many Koshin sites are now classed as Shinto shrines, and some, like here, as Buddhist temples. The honzon here is a Fudo Myoo.

My route now took me along the main road of Noma. There was some nice traditional architecture, though my favorite of the day was the old school house that was made famous in a movie.

The sun dipped below the hills as I passed through the biggest soy sauce factory of the island. 

It was almost dark when I reached  Saisho-an, number 10. It was created in the separation of shrines and temples, and the honzon, an Aizen Myoo was originally in the shrine next door.

It was completely dark by the time I got back to my room, and a little while later there was a knock at my door. It was the old priest I had met at Kannonji, and then later at Dounzan. He had brought me a gift, a delightful print of Fudo Myo!! A truly excellent day to start the pilgrimage with, that bodes well for the coming days.

Wild Japan