Japan (April 2019): Yonago
and around
After spending three days on the island
of Nishinoshima I took a ferry to Sakaiminato
on the main land and from there a train to Yonago. Yonago (pop. ~150,000) is a pleasant city, but not an
especially interesting one. My main goal in stopping there was to use it as a
base for a day climb of Mount Daisen and side-trips
to two other nearby places: the Adachi Museum of Art and its garden, and the
Buddhist Zuikozan Kiyomizudera
temple.
Sakaiminato:
Shigeru Mizuki
(1922-2015), a famous Japanese manga author, was raised in Sakaiminato.
He specialized in stories of yokais, characters with
supernatural abilities that have been part of the Japanese folklore since times
preceding the Edo era. Recently, the city of Sakaiminato
has dedicated one of its streets, Mizuki Shigeru
Road, to him. This street is lined up on both sides with over 100 bronze statues
of yokais appearing in his stories. Looking at some
of them was a good way to spend time while waiting for the next train to Yonago.
Giant Yokai
mural on the facade of the Sakaiminato ferry terminal
at one end of the Mizuki Shigeru Road.
Some of the yokai
statues along the Mizuki Shigeru Road.
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Yonago:
Monumental structure welcoming travelers
exiting from the Yonago′s railway station.
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Walls remaining from the former castle
of Yonago.
Views from the top platform of the
castle site:
- Over Yonago
(toward the north), with the Sea of Japan in the back.
- Of Mount Daisen
(toward the east).
- Over the lake Nakaumi
(west) at sunset.
Adachi Museum of Art:
This museum is located roughly half-way
between Matsue and Yonago, a short distance south of Yasugi city. It was created in 1980 by Adachi Zenko (1899-1990), a businessman born in Yasugi. The museum, which displays a large collection of
paintings by Japanese masters, is set in a garden that has been regularly
ranked as the best garden in Japan. Here I saw more visitors in a few hours,
especially non-Japanese, than in all the rest of my three-week trip to Japan.
Most seemed to be coming by tour buses on a side-trip from the southern coast
of Honshu (Okayama), lured by the award-winning garden. I personally found the
museum gorgeous, but the garden less so. The collection of paintings is remarkably
diverse and unlike what can usually be seen at other places, especially the
paintings by Yokoyama Taikan. The garden is
beautiful, but definitively not as inspiring as older Japanese gardens that can
be seen elsewhere. In my opinion the museum is really the main attraction, with
the garden providing a great surrounding; not the reverse. (Photos in the
museum are not allowed.)
Zuikozan Kiyomizudera temple:
Also located near Yasugi
city, this Buddhist temple (Tendai sect) has the same
name, Kiyomizudera, as one of the most famous temples
in Kyoto. Set on a slope of Mt. Zuiko in a peaceful
forest environment, it boasts the only three-storied pagoda on the San-in
coast. It was founded
more than 1400 years ago, in year 587. Kiyomizudera
means ″pure water temple″, while Zuiko
means ″light of good fortune″.
Layout of the temple complex.
Main gate (daimon)
at the base of the stone steps leading to the temple complex.
Statue representing King Acala (known as Fudo Myo-o in
Japan) on the left side of the daimon. Acala, a protective deity (a dharmapala),
is highly venerated in Tendai Buddhism.
The elegant Takatoro
lantern standing below the stairs leading to the main prayer hall.
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Path of torii
toward the small Inari shrine in the complex.
Gomado (left) and Korodo
(incense burner, right).
Statue of Acala
(also known as Fudo Myo-o) inside the Gomado.
The main prayer hall (Konpondo).
Lanterns and paintings on wood tablets
inside the Konpondo.
The pagoda.
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Some of the statues along a prayer path
behind the pagoda.
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Ascent of Mount Daisen (day trip):
At 1729m Mt. Daisen,
an extinct volcano, is the highest mountain in the Chugoku region, the
westernmost region of Honshu. Although not very high compared to other Japanese
mountains further north, it is quite prominent as it stands at only 14km from
the coast of the Sea of Japan. During the winter it receives a considerable
amount of snow that remains on its upper slopes until the end of April. It has
also been a sacred mountain for several centuries. Starting in the 8th century,
it was a major site for Shugendo, a syncretic
religion that combines Shinto, Buddhism and former local religious practices.
Today the lower section of its northern slope is home to Daisen-ji,
a Buddhist temple, and Ogamiyama-jinja, a Shinto
shrine, both located within a short walking distance from the start of the
trail to the summit.
Mt. Daisen has
two main peaks, close to each other: Kengamine
(1729m) and Misen (1709m). Reaching Kengamine requires traversing an unstable knife-edge ridge
and is roped off. So, the climbed summit is Misen.
The ascent starts from Daisen village at an elevation
of approximately 800m.
Mt. Daisen
seen from the ferry between the Oki islands and the Honshu mainland port of Sakaiminato.
Another view of Mt. Daisen
from a location near Daisenguchi (small coastal town
east of Yonago).
View of Mt. Daisen
from the Sada river near the
start of the climb (north of the mountain). This photo shows that it is a more
complex volcano than suggested by the previous two photos. While Mt. Daisen looks like an almost perfect volcanic cone from the
west, it is actually an elongated range shaped by many eruptions (that occurred
more than 10,000 years ago) and erosion. Its two main peaks are located on the
western end of the range (on the right in the photo below).
View of the ascent path (red line) in
Google Earth.
At the beginning of the climb the Natsuyama trail consists of stone stairs.
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These stairs lead to Amidado,
an isolated hall belonging to the Daisen-ji temple.
Above Amidado
the vegetation turns to a forest of beech trees, with some occasional nice
flowers.
The stairs are then made of tree logs
and are less regular. They equip almost all the rest of the route.
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The trail gets increasingly covered by
snow, which was probably tamped down during the winter by backcountry skiers.
At some point vegetation turns to smaller shrub.
View of the mountain range toward the
east.
Getting close to the summit ridge.
View of the summit ridge from below.
Marker on Peak Misen.
Note the precision in the measurement of the elevation (although most maps
indicate 1709m).
View of the ridge from peak Misen, with the slightly higher peak Kemgamine
visible at the center of the photo.
Southern slopes of peak Misen.
Climber on the boardwalk below the
summit beginning his descent. I started mine shortly behind him.
I reached Daisen
village a couple of hours before the next bus departure to Yonago.
This gave me time to visit both the main hall of Daisen-ji
and Ogamiyama-jinja
Stairs and gate leading to the main hall
of Daisen-ji.
The well-proportioned main hall. The
hall was destroyed by a fire in 1928 and reconstructed in 1951.
Ox statue and small pond on the right
side of the hall.
Ogamiyama-jinja.
I took this photo of Mt. Daisen from a train on the next morning. During the night the
weather had turned sour and remained so for the entire day. I had been lucky to
do the ascent under fair weather.
