Hokoji Hansobo

Rain swirling down on our heads, I was next trying to find a famous temple in Inasa that a student had mentioned that I had forgotten the name of. We hopped in my car and I started searching frantically on my GPS and found a little picture on the screen, so I thought I had found the place. Whenever there is a little picture on the GPS it means that I have found a somewhat famous place. So we made our way out to the little icon on the map.
The place we had found was not the place that I was actually looking for, we would get there later in the day. The place we found was called Hokoji Hansobo. Despite the rain (and the lady at the entrance booth was so nice she offered for me to borrow her umbrella- but being the Vancouverite that I am, I refused it) we hiked through the lovely short walk through the woods to the main temple. The path was lined with the so-called gohyakurakan - I am not sure what rakan means but gohyaku is 500- so must be the 500 buddha statues, they were pretty neat.
Up some stairs and across a footbridge, we found our way to the main temple area and found the view quite beautiful. I especially thought that the pine tree sculpted as a bonsai was quite interesting. The area we saw was quite small, but I found it to be very serene and peaceful location.

We passed on a 30 minute hike to more buildings, though I definitely bookmarked this place for deeper exploration on a future date. The actual Hokoji Hansobo spans 60 acres with over 60 buildings. The place acts as the headquarters for the Rinzaishu Hokoji sect that has roots back to 1371.

We had accidentally stumbled across a hidden treasure that I knew nothing about! I was getting heady thinking I was a great tour guide- visions of quitting my day job and just touring people around the area.... Okay not really, but I was having fun exploring the area with the ladies!