Sunday, January 7, 2007

Temple or shrine in Miyaguchi

Well, I am not sure if the place is a temple or shrine or Buddhist or Shinto. But.... a few weeks ago I went for a walk to a nearby park called Forest Park (Shinrin koen). I never ended up making it there, but I happened across an interesting ( for the sake of this blog, let's say temple) temple on the top of a hill. This is the name of it...


And, I the ever exploring fool, can't resist the beconing of a mysterious old looking stairway. (sorry for the quality of these pictures, they were only taken on my phone camera)


At the top of the hill is a normal looking shrine,but I was interested in a small path wandering off to the side. After walking a few minutes I was stunned by the beautiful view of Hamamatsu. These pictures are a little dark, but you can see Hama-town's lone skyscraper in the center, Act City.



There was some interesting looking old stone structures, like a well, a stone with some writing on it, and what looks like a grave stone.













Finally there was an older looking temple (or shrine).

On the way down the hill ( I went down a different way) I saw the biggest danged pear I have ever seen in my life, this mother could feed a small African village.

I didn't know at the time, but later my wife pointed out that where I was walking was about a minute away from where my wife's family lives right now. Well I know how to get to their house no problem now.

All in all it lacked the sheen, the spit and polish of kiyomizudera or kinkakuji but to me it was more authentic, lived in, naturally untouched and therefore more interesting.

If anyone wants a larger version of any of the pictures, let me know by e-mail if you know me, or in comments if you don't.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is absolutely a shrine.
The stone in the first picture says "Takane Jinja Omote Sandou Iriguchi."
It means "This is the main path to Takane Shrine."

I found a web site which tells about Takane Shrine.
According to the site it was established more than 1000years ago. ( Nobody knows its accrate age. )

http://www.geocities.jp/engishiki01/toutoumi/bun/to120402-01.html

There are about 500 shrines in Hamamatsu. It's amazing isn't it?

↓This web site has a list of them in Hamamatsu.

http://www.shizuoka-jinjacho.or.jp/shokai/search.cgi?search_area=606&start=100

I like this kind of minor shrine rather than big famous one like "Meiji Jinguu","Mishima taisha",ando so on.