Evil Buddhist Bird: 1, Laura: 0

Location: Himeji
Date: December 27, 2006
Sights: Mt. Shosha (Engyoji Temple complex) and Himeji-jo


MT. SHOSHA

Info: Engyoji Temple was founded about 1000 years ago by Shoku, a holy Buddist priest. It was said that anyone who climbed this mountain would be purified both in body and spirit. I cheated and took a cable car. Does that mean I wasn't purified?


I followed the path of 33 Kannon statues (above) to the Nio Mon (gate -below)



I passed Juryoin (an important sub-temple -above) and stumbled upon Maniden (below). It was originally built in 970AD (present building is from 1932) to honour the Goddess of Mercy. Interesting fact: It was built without a single nail, just like Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto.



The mountain was empty. The only people I saw were some construction workers and a woman at a tea house. I was decidedly creeped out by the place. It was dark, lonely and I felt like an intruder. Below is Daikodo, the great auditorium. It, along with Jikido and Jogyodo make up the three main temples, which were a training centre for priests.



It started to rain a bit so I decided to head back towards the posh cable car. Before I did, I managed to get some nice shots of Himeji from a lookout point. But while taking this picture a weird and frightening thing happened - a bird in the tree behind me whipped a berry at my head! That was it, I couldn't take this creepy, empty, guard-bird-temple complex anymore. I was outta there!




HIMEJI-JO


Info: When you think of a Japanese castle, you probably think of Himeji-jo. It's known as the Castle of the White Heron and was built in 1580. It is widely considered the finest original castle in Japan and interestingly, has never seen battle (which probably helped with the whole original-thing). Once I got away from the berry-throwing birds of Mt.Shosha, the weather cleared and it was a beautiful day.






Here is a display of 'maru-gawara' (circle tiles), or family crests of those families who built or repaired parts of the castle.


For part of the path I was stuck behind an Australian family. When we arrived at the top of the castle, the father brought out his video camera and forced the two teenage kids to make up a commentary, like they were on some travel show. When the son fumbled his 'lines' the father called 'cut', mentioned editing and had them start all over again. All I can say is - thank god you never did that to me and Christopher, dad...taking a family picture is stressful enough...