From Taisha to Hinomisaki

 

The day after the Summer Solstice, and my route now hugs the convoluted coastline up to Hinomisaki.

Hinomisaki is the western cape of the Shimane Peninsula, with Mihonoseki being the eastern cape.

!0,000 years ago the Shimane Peninsula was an island. In Izumo mythology it was formed from the land of three distant countries that were pulled here and attached to Izumo by two giant ropes. Hinomisaki is held to the mainland by the "rope" of the beach that runs from Izumo Taisha to Tagi.

A lot of water still lies between the mainland of Izumo and the Shimane Peninsula, including Lake Shinji and  the Nakaumi lagoon. In  historical times the land between Izumo and Taisha was marshland that has since been reclaimed.

There are no settlements and only a few, scattered habitations along the road from Taisha up to the cape.

The final photo in the post shows an abandoned hotel up near the cape. Probably built in the tourism boom of the 1960's. I have yet to explore it.

The two previous photos to that final one  show a small inlet with a traditional Japanese ryokan.

Very popular with fishermen.....

The previous post in this series on my walk along the Japan Sea Coast was on Taisha Fishing Port.

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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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Magical Giant Bamboo Forests of Sasaguri

 

One of the great bonuses found on the Sasaguri Pilgrimage is that numerous times the walking trail passes through pristine forests of Giant Bamboo.

With only the merest whisper of a breeze, the bamboos clack against each other like wind chimes....

I know that the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest is one of the most popular tourist sites in all of Japan, but who prefers shuffling shoulder to shoulder through a manicured park with literally thousands of people, when you could be alone deep inside a magical space...?

That was a rhetorical question. The value of Arashiyama is you can take the same photos as millions and millions of other people and then post them on the same social media sites....

But, for the rest of us, I highly recommend the Sasaguri Pilgrimage.... very close to Hakata and you don't have to do the whole 4 days.....

These pics were taken after leaving a couple of temples in the Nakanokawachi area....

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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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Rakan at Tamonji

 

Rakan,  sometimes called arhats, are said to be the disciples of the historical Buddha.

Statues of them are known for being quite expressive, with every one being distinct.

It is said that you cannot fail to see the features of  someone you know in at least one of them.

Sometimes, a full 500 Rakan statues will be on display, but more commonly, much fewer.

On the hillside approach to Tamonji Temple north of Kobe, I was surprised to find these pictured here...

One group were more expressive and somewhat larger than most of the others. They had some patina of green, indicating they were somewhat old.

Most seemed to be newer and of a smaller, standardized size and with fewer features.

I visited early in the morning and so the low sun and shadows helped make them appear more magical...

I have posted on rakan many times before, including Sennyoji Temple in Kyushu with a full 500, another 500 on an island mountaintop, and the quite well-known ones on Miyajima.

The previous post was on the many other sights, and the intriguing history of Tamonji Temple.

Please take time to enjoy the photos..... this is not tiktok.....

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