Around the Bōsō Peninsula in a day – The reclining Buddha at Jorakuzan Mantokuji temple

We’ve been back awhile but I still need to update some of our last weeks in Japan. I’ll backdate them so for future reference they still fit into the right order and such)

Leaving Tateyama Castle we made our way south to visit Jorakuzan Mantokuji temple with one of the few reclining buddha’s of Japan.
The temple is rather new, having been made in the mid 1980’s but it’s still worth a visit.

In comparison to many temples and shrines here you can actually get really close to the statue itself and touch it.
It’s said if you walk around the buddha 3 times in clockwise direction, made easy by a walkway which goes around it in a spiral, and then touch the feet of the Buddha your wish will be granted.

I had nothing to wish for, I guess after spending so long in Japan, on a holiday really I feel rather blessed and not in need of anything to wish for (although on departure I sure wished for a ‘beam me up Scotty’ machine to beam our luggage over!). THe Smurg enjoyed the fact that there was no “don’t touch that!” moment and she could roam freely, touch freely and with all the restrictions of being in a city, she loves freedom.

I came away with another ema for her collection and a gorgeous jade prayer bracelet given to me by the other half, some nice pictures and a sense of contentedness (is that an English word?)

If you ever plan to visit this place, it might be handy to know that upon approach from the north the entrance to the temple will be on your left, right before a 7-11. When we visited there was no sign indicating its presence beside the red torii.

We decided to continue driving south and then back north around the other side of the peninsula. Weather still awful, now with a steady drizzle which made it little fun to get out of the car.

This was the southern most point and down that way *points* Australia should be… oh I miss home at times.

Missing home or not our intrepid explorers trod on and slowly start making their way north when lo and behold! One spots a windmill!

Some things are just not expected in Japan, Mt Rushmore, windmills and other oddities. It turned out to be part of the Maruyama district ‘Shakespeare Village’.

Unfortunately at the time they where doing some major maintenance work

Seems many places we went to decided to do just that when we decided to visit, alas, it was a lovely curiosity. I hopped out of the car and peeked inside one of the windows and saw this wonderful miniature reconstruction of ‘The Globe Theatre”

The rest of the journey was rather uneventful, dreary sky, rain, gorgeous rugged coastline, uncooperative cormorants (these are birds the Japanese train to fish for them. More about them on Wiki) who refused to stay put while I focused camera (cheeky ones!) and a lot of hills.
Still love to go about the Japanese countryside and see villages and towns where there is little or no tourism

*R*

Around the Bōsō Peninsula in a day – Tateyama Castle

After our visit to the Gake Kannon Temple we set off south again to visit Tateyama castle.
Plans had been to go to Himeij, but as we hope to come back one day, we decided to leave Himeij and Nara for our next visit.

Although Tateyama Castle is new, as in as new as 1982, it is based on Inuyama Castle build in 1440 (and said to be Japan’s oldest castle) so gives a good idea what it would/could have looked like.

Build on top of a hill, the white structure looks stunning against the green treetops it towers above. We took a leisurely stroll up the hill, with a Smurg who kept wanting to go ‘that’ way. That way being a direction not in harmony with the direction The Parents had said. Very funny how quickly they get independent and decide to go their own way, when they so feel.

Nowadays Tateyama Castle is mainly devoted to exhibits pertaining to the epic novel Nanso Satomi Hakkenden, by Edo period author Takizawa Bakin.
Takizawa Bakin was a dedicated writer. Wiki says:
“Nansō Satomi Hakkenden (南總里見八犬傳?, or using simplified kanji, 南総里見八犬伝) is a Japanese 106 volume epic novel by Kyokutei Bakin. It was written and published over a period of nearly thirty years (1814 to 1842). Bakin had gone blind before finishing the tale, and he dictated the final parts to his daughter-in-law Michi. It is translated as The Eight Dog Chronicles,[1] Tale of Eight Dogs,[2] or Biographies of Eight Dogs [3]”

I have not read it but I have added it to my ‘to read’ list. Apparently it’s still considered a wonderful piece of literature.
WIKI as more here.

The castle if full of books and drawings about this novel and it’s writer.

I loved the octopus with the banjo

Ladies

and sumo wrestlers

There is a beautiful view from the castle, and only for that it’s worth visiting.

Unfortunately when we were there the weather was less than cooperative for views (or good pictures)

When you walk down you pass a small peacock garden

I’m not a fan of zoo’s, and this one made my heart cry when I spotted a solitary monkey in a cage with no toys, noting to keep it entertained and looking particularly sad. I broke all rules and fed the poor thing an orange (no flames! there were orange skins in the cage, so he eats them) he sure looked a lot more alert while trying to peel his food.

And yes, that’s the Smurg, quite enthralled by the peacocks.

*R*

Around the Bōsō Peninsula in a day – Gake Kannon Temple

After having some lunch at the restaurant next to the Hanto-Kanaya Spa outside Futtsu, we set off to our next destination: the Gake Kannon Temple.

Established around 717 by a priest called Gyoki. Gake Kannon means cliff temple, and I the name is most appropriate. Build against a nearly vertical rock face, you wonder how they ever got it there 1300 ago.

At the foot of the temple there are a few buildings

and a huge cemetery

If you ever visit, take the path on the right side (when facing the temple) it’s a lot less steep than the stairs on the left side!

Walk about half way up and you come to an area with a few more buildings and the office where you can buy your Ema. I’ve been getting The Smurg one at each temple or shrine we visited as a souvenir

Above the cliff face behind one of the buildings someone carved a word and a face

After our visit to Nikko, I spotted more and more sculptures of elephants around temples. This one had a couple too

There is something odd about some of them, maybe its their fierce look. So the on carved on this pedistal looks very realistic.

The interesting thing here was the shrine with the cobra statues. In these 3 months I have not come across any cobra’s at shrines and I cannot seem to find any information about them either.
It was sitting in between a whole lot of smaller shrines to Inari, but no references to Cobra’s in relation to Inari either.
Intriguing!

Again an unusual Chōzubachi, this one hewn into the cliff

And then up to the actual Gake Kannon temple. The temple itself was closed but the view, even if the weather was so so, was spectacular!

Then back down again. Anything high up makes me a little nervous. Kids at nearly 2 are like eels, slippery and off before you know it. She likes stairs though, so it was easy to convince her to leave, not an easy feat normally with our little explorer.

One last glance, still wondering how they ever got it build, and feeling sorry for those who dragged all the materials up the cliff,

we set off to our next goal, Tateyama Castle

*R*

Around the Bōsō Peninsula in a day – The crevice shrine

Days off again and we’ve decided to check out the Boso Peninsula. The weather is said to be overcast and rainy so a drive might just be the thing.

Narita, where we are staying, is on the Northern tip and the peninsula is east of Tokyo Bay and North & West of the Pacific.

We set off and took the tollway to Chiba and then just drove south along the coast.

Our first stop was between Kimitsu and Futtsu. Along the road we drove past a small Shinto shrine and stopped for a quick look.

This was quite special as the shrine was built inside a natural crevice. The Chōzubachi was rather primitive, but I like it as it’s different from others seen so far

These two are standing next to the stairs up to the shrine

The water seeped down from the back wall, and the whole thing is covered in lichen and ferns. Notice the statue on the right, against the rock? He is quite well camouflaged

To the right, there was a sign, which I think might have explained more of the shrine, but I can’t read it. That’s such a frustrating feeling! I speak/read/write 5 languages and feel totally at loss at times here.

Always love to look for statues and tiny shrines in unusual places

We didn’t go and check the shrine at the top of these stairs, as we weren’t sure (not sure why) if the area was closed off.

Good reason to go back again one day

*R*

Narita Gion Festival

On an early July Friday morning at 10AM the Narita Gion Festival officially starts, and has so for the last 300 years.
The city goes crazy (by way of speaking), and for 3 days the roads around Omotesando Road and the temple are either congested or closed.
During these three days one of Naritasan Shinshoji’s portable shrines (omikoshi) and 10 different floats are paraded down the Omotesando Road, with music, dance, cheering and the chanting of ‘oyster’ around the floats.
They don’t really chant oyster, but it sounds like it. So far none one has been able to tell me what they do shout, so oyster it is.

So on this Friday morning The Smurg and I set off to see what it’s all about. The 1st float we came across was parked just outside the Narita JR station.

It’s a huge contraption, made of wood, highly decorated and pulled up and down the Omotesando Road by men, women and children.

It’s still a little early it seems and everyone is getting ready

Dressed in their Sunday best, dressed up or wearing the ‘happy dress” (that’s what the lady at the tourist information office called it) of the Gion Festival costumes

One of the chefs of the “Believe’ restaurant

Little boy and girl dressed in the outfits worn by those who pull the floats.

The cackling (that’s another story) Kimono’s

And even the canines dress up in their best kimono

On Friday morning the Y crossing of Omotesando Road is still quiet and abandoned but for the local excentric and a couple of police men

Then we got greeted by the Oyster Oyster chant and the first float was being pulled up the hill.

To be honest I admire them, on a hot day I cringe at the thought of pushing the stroller with a 9.6KG toddler in it up the hill, let alone pull a few hundred kilo’s of float+instruments+musicians!

The girls accompanying the floats where colorful costumes

The outfits worn by those associated with a float all seem to differ depending what float, and what area of Narita they belong to

This lady is part of the all women pulling team. She wears Jika-tabi boots, which most construction workers and roofers wear. apparently due to their tactile feel with the ground and excellent grip/no slip soles.

The festival was amazing, lots of music which The Smurg really enjoyed, at one point having a grand audience when she was dancing away to the float flute and drum music.

Thousands of people (last year apparently 400000 attended the festival) attend, and at one point we could not move back or forth with the stroller.
Luckily floats do come with manual brakes, and this is truly manual

At one point all floats are pulled up to the temple square for blessings

The Smurg was really hot and bothered and tired and I actually missed this part of the festival

The shrine being carried from the temple on another round of Narita

Having a well deserved rest

Once is started to rain, the figured on top of the floats are lowered down (into the float itself), the rain covers put up and everyone keeps partying

This little girl, danced and chanted for 3 days, maybe not constantly but I saw her every day

The carts are beautiful too, up the smallest details they have been decorated. This angle has beautiful mother of pearl inlay

This carving is amazing! The ball is hollow with another ball inside, which is lose. Always wonder how they do that

In the evening, one of the little street restaurants, put up a Kabuki Play.

All in all it was amazing and fun, and very very busy. We ended up with sore feet, a smile in our heart and on our face and a very sleeping child.

The next day, we ran across this wagon, being dismantled for storage.

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There are a lot more picture in the photo album

Enjoy
*R*

Nagaoka Ancient Cave Tombs

On our way to Nikko, we drove past these caves, but did not have the time, or possibility to stop and investigate.

It looked interesting, but Google and Lonely Planet couldn’t help us. Took me some time to dig out the info about this place. Constructed sometime in the early 7th century, the 52 tombs all face south, and all contain a statue of Kannon, goddess of Mercy.

Next to the tombs is a small shrine

All tombs are hewn out of the rock, complete with their statues and at times drains and stairs

Check out the photo album for some more pictures.

I love discoveries of this kind, things most tourist don’t know about, and unless you drive past you wouldn’t find.

If you ever go that way, the address is:
373,Nagaoka-cho, Utsunomiya-Shi, Tochigi-ken

*R*

Tobu World Square and Mt. Rushmore

Day to drive back home, so an easy day full of kiddie fun.

We decided to go and visit Tobu World Square, a theme park with the world in miniature. Holland has one, and as a child I loved to go there. Gulliver in my own country, peaking in on all the ‘people’ on streets, in houses, buildings, laughing, running, living their plastic lives.
Once there we realised The Smurg was just a tat too small to really enjoy it. Her love went to the wonderful recreation of Narita Airport and anything that showed a Buddha, or we had visited while in Japan.

On our way there what greeted us but a recreation of Mt, Rushmore and an abandoned Wild West theme park. There are many of these things to be seen in Japan, theme parks that have been abandoned and look rather forlorn.

I won’t bore you with pictures of Tobu, except a few of my favorites

My home country

One of the places we visited, and which The Smurg recognized

Loved the realism of this building with its weathered stones

What did intrigue me about Tobu was the incredible collection of bonsai. Bonsai are used through the whole park as trees. Their diminuitive size perfectly matched to the buildings.
A few examples

Wonderful don’t you think?

*R*

Up the mountains to Yumoto and Yunodaira Marsh and stories about bears

Rinnō-ji was in a way so over powering that we decided to spend the afternoon in the mountains.

From Nikko we drove up towards Lake Chuzenji ad then on to Yumoto.
Half way between Nikko and Lake Chuzenji there is a cable car that takes you up to mountain for a wonderful view of the lake and the Kegon waterfall.

Kegon and Lake Chuzenji, unfortunately by the time we arrived clouds and a slight fog had descended.

Kegon waterfall with its 97M drop is one of Japan’s 3 tallest waterfalls, it’s surrounded by about 12 smaller waterfalls that flow of the mountain or down cracks in the rock behind it.

After this little side trip, no monkeys to be spotted this time, we went up towards Yumoto.
Yumoto is a Onsen town (see word on the street for the word Onsen), it’s right on the edge of Lake Yunoko (lit. “hot water lake”) and in fact, at one edge of the lake you can see hot water bubbling up.

The first thing that hits you when you leave the car is the smell of sulphur or rotten eggs. If hell truly smells like this, I shall work on being a very good girl! After an hour or so of it I had a throbbing headache.
We popped into the tourist office and LO and BEHOLD! There are bears in this area! They had a few (badly stuffed bears, a couple of skins and a nice big warning poster

As usual total latin to me, but seems that they advise to carry a bell (so bears hear you coming?) and a whistle ( so if a bear is particularly obnoxious you can try to scare it?). Well as we’re not planning any wild trips up the mountains and into the woods we don’t need either.
Famous last words.

Now I knew about moon bears, or the Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) but did not realise that they also appear in Japan, and well on the island we’re on Honshu. This species is considered vulnerable and some scientist think it’s the ancestor of other extant bears. This species of bear is really aggressive and is known to attack without provocation, so bells and whistles make sense.
WIKI has some great info about them. Quite thrilled to be in bear country, and would be amazing if we’d see one, while safely driving our car, so no worries the Smurg ends up as some hors d’oeuvre for a Tsukinowaguma.

So off for a little wander around town. First we’re off to Onsenji, a small Buddhist temple to honor the Onsen Gods.
Apparently it also has a small public Onsen, but at the time we weren’t aware of that.

The smell of eggs/sulphur is quite bad here and the pretty flowers and green grass are in sharp contract to the foul smell.

The wooden structure on this picture is a semi-floating walkway over the Yunodaira Marsh. This is where most of the town’s water bubbles out of the ground.

Top left, clockwise: school children holding a basket of eggs they boiled by lowering it into one of the water holes, the marsh with walkways and little buildings over the springs, peeking into one of the buildings, marsh on approach, tubes carrying the water to the Onsen hotels.

When we arrived here there were many school children dipping coins in teabags into the water to see how the sulphur changed the color from silver to black.

Smelling like something the cat brought home, we wandered down to Lake Yunoko. At the edge of the lake, closest to the marsh, you can see, and smell, hot water bubbling out of the ground.
It seems that all sulphur is good for plants too as the reeds and horsetails grew profusely there.

Lake Yunoko

Back into the car, and off to Yudaki waterfall
Absolutely gorgeous, and very very loud. Smurg thought it was amazing and tried a couple of times to jump into the water (her love of water and swimming are notorious)

The area around it is thick shrubs, trees and a whole lot of nothing

The Smurg and daddy walked down a couple of stairs, looked at a fisherman, and while I turn my back to take a picture they go “poof”.
Wait a few minutes, wait a couple more, call out, call again, check around car, cafe, other side of loop path and guess what? No Smurg, no daddy, no reply.
So what do you do? You recall bear poster, recall no bells and whistles and ….PANIC!

When they finally appeared out of nowhere, while I had no voice and pictures of the 2 people I love chased and eaten by a black bear, I could have hugged Smurg and killed him.

We drove back down to Nikko, had some dinner and jumped into the Onsen at our hotel.

Rinnō-ji temple complext and the Taiyū-in Reibyō mausoleum

This morning we drove down to do our day of temple viewing at Rinnō-ji. This is a complex of 15 temples with the 1st one founded in 766, and at one point over 500 temples belonged to this complex!

We didn’t realise you could drive up to the temple so we parked close to the Shinkyo (sacred bridge) and walked from there. The bridge is made of red lacquered wood and spans the Daiya River.
Legend says that a hermit was carried across the river at this point by 2 serpents.

And although a gorgeous structure I was more intrigued by what was under the bridge.

The pillars of the bridge seem to be hewn out of one block of stone, quite impressive!

And somehow this rock under it made me think of a sitting man, with a long beard seen from behind, slightly to the side. Wonder if anyone else sees that in the rock?

anyways, after pushing The Smurg up a steep slope in her pram (and losing my cool and composed look due to the terrible humidity) we arrived at the temples.

Imagine my surprise when the world-famous Sanbutsudō (three Buddha hall) is a very modern corrugated iron structure with a paining of a temple on it!

The temple does exists, within it. We couldn’t get any answer is it lives within this structure due to the extensive restoration works being done for some time, or if this is permanent to protect it from the environment.
This hall is named the 3 Buddha hall, due to the 3 (who would have guessed!) gold leaf statues of Buddha within.
No pictures as photography here is strictly forbidden and guards watch your every move.

Then we moved onto the Taiyū-in Reibyō mausoleum. This is something different. I wasn’t prepared for the visual overload this place gives you. It’s impressive, and a little too much.
This son, and later grandson build and extended this shrine, to the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1868).
Most of these buildings, and those of the temple are UNESCO World Heritage sites. See here for some more info.

And all of us know about this temple, because all of us have seen and heard of the “speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil” monkeys, and they originate here.

So a few photos for you or this incredible piece of art.

Map of the mausoleum

Detail of gate, love how the elephant looks

Store house

Stable for the sacred horses. See the monkey wood carvings

The famous 3 monkeys

Eaves of another building

Roofed cloisters

Gate in the roofed wall that encloses the Honden (main shrine hall)

And when all is said and done, this is the actual monument on the grave of the famous Shogun

As you can see an overpowering presence of colors, gold, carvings, inlays, buildings, lanterns and what not.

Once we saw this I had such an overload that we decided to go for a quiet trip up the mountains and leave the temples be. They have been there for hundreds of years and I am sure when we return to Japan they will still be there

Later more about our trip to the Onsen temple, the source of Nikko’s Onsen and a scary encounter with bears

The photoalbum has more pictures, and if you go HERE, there is some others
*R*

The Little Yakitori Bar

Sometimes you come across a restaurant that for one reason or the other stands out from all the others you have been to.

In my life I have seen and eaten in more restaurants than most people will, not that I’m such a fan for eating out, but my job (pre-mamma job) meant I spend months abroad, living in hotels and eating out.

The Little Yakitori Bar in Nikko is one of those places. Yes the Yakitori is lovely, the Gyoza are the best I’ve eaten so far (not so greasy) but not exceptional. What makes this place an experience is that it’s small, homely and has the biggest collection of thank you notes from patrons I’ve ever seen.

All 4 walls, the ceiling and entry are covered with them

If you ever go to Nikko, I recommend it, food is good, service is excellent and it’s truly good value

Tomorrow we’re off to see the temples

*R*