Saidoji Rokkakudo

 

Seemingly floating in Esaki Bay, Saidoji Temple has a distinctive hexagonal hall.

The origin dates back to the early part of the 15th Century and a wealthy family by the name of Nabeyama who had an ony daughter named Okiku. They had hoped to marry her off but she fell in love with a servant named Shichigoro.

When she became pregnant by him, her parents drove him away, and in her sorrow, she threw herself into the sea.

Her parents searched for her for three days and three nights, to no avail, however they did pull up in a et from the sea a Jizo statue holding a child. They took this to be a reincarnation of their daughter and enshrined it on the tiny island.

Seven years later, Shichigoro returned in the guise of a monk and converted the shrine into a temple.

In the 17th Century when the Mori had control of the area they rebuilt the temple with a hexagonal hall. This was to protect the building against the powerful stormy winds. At the same time, they planted a Black Pine, which still grows today.

I have seen other hexagonal buildings in temples around Japan, but the signboard here claims that this one os one of only two in existence, so I suspect they are talking about some aspect of its construction.

The dragon carving was quite nice....

A Boke Fuji Kannon for protection against senility..... an increasingly common Kannon statue in Japan....

The previous post was on the walk to Esaki from Susa.

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Over the Mountains to Susa

 

After leaving Utago I pass by the relatively famous Sogogawa Bridge.

Built in 1932 it is 189 meters long with a slight curve, and carries the Sanin  Rail Line across the mouth of the Sogo River. Each time I have passed by, there has been a few train enthusiasts who travel from all over the country to snap shots of trains passing over the bridge with the sea as a background.

It's quite a buzz to travel over it by train too....

Now the narrow road heads over the high country before dropping down into Susa Bay.

There were many examples of the concrete grids that replace mountain slopes that have slipped. many were quite new indicating there were some storms recently.

Right at the high point before the road starts to wind down to Susa, was a single farm. No other people lived along the road.

Susa Bay is delightful. On the west side of Mount Takayama, the bay is formed of numerous inlets.

Mount Takayama is the highest mountain in some ways up or down the coast, and according to the curator at the local history museum, it was the landmark used by Susanoo as he sailed up the coast to Izumo on his trips to and from Korea. This is the origin of the town's name.

Across the bay in the mouth of a small inlet is an island with a substantial shrine on it. The island's name is Nakashima, and a gentleman walking his dog told me Benten is enshrined there.

The main harbour and port of Susa comes into view.

In the town, I stop in at a Miho Shrine. Enshrining Kotoshironushi from Mihonoseki, a secondary shrine has Susano as the kami. In the early 20th century with the "shrine consolidation" program, Sugawara Michizane, Konpira, and Ryugujin shrines were added.

The shrine building dates to 1984 following a major storm that destroyed it in 83.

The previous post in this series on day 31 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the shrine in Utago, the last settlement before the walk over the mountains.

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Utago Miho Shrine

 This small shrine goes overboard with marine-safety gods, has the most strangely looking Fudo Myoo, and proves that angry ghosts can be horses.

The main shrine in the old fishing harbour of Utago is a Miho Shrine on what was until the 1700's a small island named Ebisujima, but which was connected to the mainland by a man-made causeway.

As a branch of the famous Miho Shrine in Mihonoseki, the main kami is Kotoshironushi, now equated with Ebisu. Also enshrined are a whole slew of other kami with connections to maritime safety.

The Sumiyoshi Sanjin are enshrined here, the three kami associated with Sumiyoshi Shrine, and then there are Omononushi and Emperor Sutoku, the two kami of Konpira shrines, and finally Ichikishimahime, one of the three Munakata kami associated with the safety of travel between Japan and Korea, and alone often equated with Benzaiten, a water kami.

Standing at the side of the main shrine building is a very unusual statue of Fudo Myoo. No longer carrying a sword, it is carved out of some kind of eroded black rock. My feeling is a kind of volcanic rock but it is full of holes. The head in particular is most weird.

Behind the shrine in an altar among rocks is a horse made of straw. I had seen similar things before at shrines on the Tottori coast, but this one comes from a fire that badly damaged the village and in the process, killed a horse. Subsequently, fires kept breaking out until they figured out it was the angry ghost of the dead horse causing the fires and so created the straw horse and altar to propitiate it. Angry ghosts are never far away in Japan....

The previous post was on the village of Utago where the shrine is.

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Utago Fishing Village

 

Utago is a fairly decent-sized little fishing village. At the edge of town is a new fishing harbour, but the old, original harbour is in the middle of town after crossing over a small river.

Dark, weathered wood is the norm for these places affected by the weather that often arrives from the sea. Utago has a railway station, but the buildings were destroyed in a storm a few years ago and has been replaced with a small bus shelter-type structure. One bench, no ticket machine....

The harbour is quite picturesque, with pine trees planted around the village shrine. It deserves a post of its own which will be next.

It seems like it would have been a small, thriving community some decades ago. Now there are no stores except for a konbini ten kilometers away.....

A few hundred meters up the coast is a tiny little harbour with just a handful of houses...

In front of one, an old lady trims seaweed....

This tiny settlement has its own small Ebisu Shrine, and a roadside shrine of sacred stones...

The previous post in this series on day 31 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the beautiful walk to here from Kiyo, down the coast where I started the day.

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A Lovely Walk from Kiyo to Utago

 

I began day 31 of my walk along the Chugoku Pilgrimage at Kiyo, a fishing harbour on the north coast of Yamaguchi

Its late March, and so Spring is gathering steam on the land....

Kiyo's little harbour only has a few small boats..... there is a beach here, and a surf shop suggests surfing, though I have not seen any on my trips here....

This whole section of coastline, from a couple of days walking further up the coast, to 5 or 6 days walking down the coast, is part of the Kita Nagato Coast National Park..... or maybe it's a Quasi National Park...

Anyway, it is a delightful stretch of coastline, but off most tourists radar...

The first half of today's walk hugs the coastline, literally. From the sidewalk, I can drop a stone into the water.

A few small, craggy islands and a rocky headland with cliffs make for a dramatic sight...

When the sky is blue, and the wind is minimal or non-existent, the water is incredibly clear...

The train line from Masuda to Hagi also hugs this coastline for most of the way. With only a few trains a day, all of them slow trains, it is not a bad way to spend a few hours...

Up ahead, the next settlement, Utago....

Fibreglass fishing boats don't decompose gracefully like wooden ones.....

Utago is a bit more substantial than Kiyo.....

The previous post was on the sights that ended yesterday's leg of the journey, 

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