Great Spring Festival at Taikodani Inari Shrine

 

Shunki Taisai translates to "Great Spring Festival," although, as far as I can tell, it is not a very common event.

In May 2011 we went down to Taikodani Inari Shrine in Tsuwano for their Shunki Taisai. As far as I know, they have not held one since.

It was quite a grand affair, with numerous priests, mikos, and representatives of the town dressed in samurai outfits.

I was very surprised to see some of the miko wearing swords.... don't think I have seen that before...

a Himorogi was set up in the shrines open courtyard. A himorogi is an area demarcated with 4 bamboos with shimenawa. It is believed this was the form shrines took in ancient times before they utilized buildings a la Buddhism.

First, the miko purified each other and then the townsmen.

Then it was the turn of the priests....

One of the great things about Tsuwano is that there are never crowds, so events such as this, or the Heron Dance or even Yabusame, you can get close to the action, not view things from a distance at the back of a crowd like at the major tourist destinations...

All the participants lined up and awaited the Guji, head priest.

The Guji arrives under the shade of a ceremonial parasol....

Then all the participants follow in procession and line up inside the himorogi...

Offerings are made and norito are read....

The guji then leads the procession up into the main hall of the shrine where further rituals are held.

later in the afternoon we watched kagura in a building half-way down the hill belwo the shrine...

The previous post in this series on Tsuwano was on the Taikodani Inari Shrine where this festival took place.

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Jyoei-ji Temple & the Shigemori Garden

 

Jyoei-ji Temple in Yamaguchi City is a Rinzai temple more commonly known as Sesshuteien after the garden designed by Sesshu within its grounds.

A statue of Sesshu, one of the most important artists and garden designers in Japanese history as well as being a zen monk, stands at the entrance to the temple.

On the approach you pass through Muin, a wide, fairly simple garden created in 2012. photos above and below. This is the first of 4 gardens at the temple.

None of the current buildings are very old, but it is quite a big temple with many smaller halls within the grounds.

The temple also has some nice art...

However, the main focus of the temple is the huge garden to the rear which is the biggest garden designed by Sesshu and said to be based on one of his landscape paintings....

I was here at the start of day 23 of my walk along the Chugoku Pilgrimage and it was peak Autumn Colours time so I highly recommend my post from last year of 24 shots of the Sesshu Garden in glorious colours.

For this post I will concetrate on the garden in front of the main hall.

It was designed by Mirei Shigemori.

It is called Nanmeitei garden and was built in 1968.

There is a story that the head priest asked Shigemori to make a garden that was not so good so that it did not detract from the Sesshu Garden.

The garden uses the two gates as a backdrop.

Please enjoy these close-up shots of the garden.

The honzon of the temple is a Thousand-armed Kannon.

The final garden is a small karesansui garden using  a reddish gravel rather than the usual white....

I once again urge you to check out the post of the Sesshu Garden in full Autumn Colours.

The previous post in this series was on my walk into Yamaguchi City the previous afternoon.

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The view from Mount Bizan

 

Mount Bizan is a 291 metre-high mountain overlooking Tokushima City.

The Bizan Ropeway runs from the 5th floor of the Awa Odori Hall and in six minutes takes you up to Bizan Park.

You have extensive views over the city to the North, East, and South.

The sea is not far away..... on a good day you can see the coast of Wakayama....

It is ranked the number one night view on Shikoku....

There is a small shrine and what appears to be a south-east Asian pagoda...

The view to the west is over the mountains that stretch away....

The broad Yoshino River dominates the view to the north...

The previous post was on the Zen temple of Zuiganji and its garden and pagoda and tea houses....

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 most recent posts.